TAMPA -- Marlins starting pitcher Ryan Weathers found himself lying face down on the mound before he even threw his first pitch against the Rays at George M. Steinbrenner Field on Saturday.
There was even more concern about Weathers’ health by the end of his shortened three-inning start due to a significant dip in velocity.
But after the left-hander was removed from the game for precautionary reasons and later evaluated, there seemed to be no present reason to be worried about Weathers moving forward.
“He got checked out after, and everything right now seems OK,” manager Clayton McCullough said after the Marlins’ 11-10 victory in 10 innings.
So, what happened?
Weathers said that after he was hit on the top of his head by a throw from catcher Nick Fortes after his final warmup pitch before the bottom of the first inning, “it felt like somebody kind of shot me with adrenaline.”
It was a frightening moment that brought gasps from many in attendance and put Weathers on the ground momentarily. However, once he was seen by trainers and threw a few more warmup pitchers, he stayed in the game and tossed a clean first inning on eight pitches.
“The Lord blessed me by letting [Fortes’ throw] hit the top of my head, not the back of my head,” Weathers said. “I'm just going to hang on to that.”
But the sudden energy burst that followed – as well as a four-run, 32-pitch second inning and the humid conditions hovering over the stadium -- took its toll on Weathers by the third inning. Some of his four-seam fastballs, which average 97.5 mph, clocked in at 91-92 mph. That earned Weathers another visit from a trainer and a concerned McCullough, but Weathers finished that inning before being removed and evaluated.
Weathers chalked it up to simply having no adrenaline left by the third.
“It was kind of just like the episode of SpongeBob when everything's on fire inside of his brain,” Weathers said about the first-inning incident. “I just felt like I was in pure chaos after that happened. It was just kind of the right time to come out of the game there.”