Ryan Weathers carried on his improved form this weekend by dominating the Blue Jays lineup in what turned out to be a Yankees win in extras. Weathers has found superior results by adjusting his arsenal to minimize the damage he allows and maximize his potential. And those changes are so meaningful that they warrant multiple focal points of discussion.
Earlier in the month, fellow Pinstripe Alley writer Andrés Chávez came here to talk about the root behind these changes; Weathers’ fastball was getting tattooed regularly, and he needed to do something about it. Long story short, he started throwing it less and less, a decision that has been paying dividends, with the rest of his arsenal carrying the load.
Weathers wasn’t the first and won’t be the last pitcher to deal with problems from a fastball that, despite having good velocity, doesn’t possess any outstanding characteristics to consistently perform well. What has allowed Weathers to more appropriately handle this challenge has been his ability to quickly transition into relying increasingly on the sinker, which was already a pretty important part of his arsenal.
No matter how appealing his offspeed stuff is, any starting pitcher needs at least one fastball they can somewhat consistently go to in order to thrive in that role. For Weathers, that has been the sinker, and it was more evident than ever in Sunday’s win over the Blue Jays. Notice the very few red dots down below.
After the first two starts of the 2026 campaign, Weathers had been consistent about not overexposing any of his pitches. Before his latest appearance, the most Weathers had thrown any of his pitches was a 36 percent four-seam fastball usage in late April against the Astros. Well, against the Blue Jays, he set a season high, featuring the sinker 41 percent of the time as the four-seamer was nowhere to be found apart from a rare surprise look above the strike zone.
With such an adjustment, you can forget about the high strikeout rates of early in the season, but the hard contact will also be limited in a more efficient manner. In this particular game against the Blue Jays, for instance, Weathers didn’t record a single whiff on 11 swings against his sinkers — he made a living out of earning called strikes to get ahead, and when contact was made, only singles were given up. The two extra-base hits the Jays had against Weathers both came on poorly located changeups.
For Weathers, ditching the four-seamer doesn’t directly correlate to just hammering sinkers regardless of feel for his other pitches. If that were the case, his sinker would be dominant enough that all of these adjustments wouldn’t even be needed in the first place. There will be games such as the July 20th win over the Pirates in which the changeup is the go-to offering for Weathers. What matters is that the existence of the sinker as a reliable hard offering allows Weathers to take this approach in the first place.
Although it has been present for a few starts already, it’ll be important to see how the opposition reacts to these adjustments and if we start seeing a different approach against the Yankees lefty. For now, the consistency he has found rounds out this Yankees rotation quite nicely.