Beginning in the mid-2000s, Aaron Harang sometimes fielded a particular request. A fellow Cincinnati Reds pitcher needed to condition with the other relievers. The reliever’s son wanted to shag fly balls. Could Harang please keep an eye on Ryan Weathers during batting practice?
For Harang, it was an easy ask. David Weathers, his former Reds teammate, remains a good friend. In Ryan Weathers, Harang saw a well-behaved young man and a precocious talent.
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“He’s out there, just 7, 8 years old, catching fly balls that I’ve seen big leaguers drop,” Harang said this week.
Last week, Harang sat down in front of his television. Weathers was making his first start as a big leaguer. He ended up throwing 79 pitches. The Los Angeles Dodgers fouled off 19. They barreled only a couple. Across 3 2/3 innings, baseball’s most tenacious offense settled for one hit and no runs against the youngest pitcher in the majors.
Weathers, the Padres’ 21-year-old lefty, soaked up the atmosphere inside Petco Park. Six months earlier, he confronted the same Dodgers lineup on an elevated stage. Now, he was starting the biggest game of the new season in front of 15,250, the largest crowd allowed under COVID-19 restrictions.
“Man, it was intense,” Weathers later told Harang. “Everybody was chanting ‘Beat L.A.’”
The setting, though, did not overwhelm him. This was the case in October when Weathers became just the second pitcher to make his major-league debut in the postseason. This has been the case virtually his entire life.
The location of his next start will be hostile, if not completely unfamiliar. In his 19-year career, David Weathers logged 24 appearances at Dodger Stadium, including 16 as a father. Lately, his son has taken up the big league mantle. No matter what happens Thursday night, Ryan Weathers should be equipped to face the outcome.
“I don’t know what the Lord has in store for his future, but I do know that it’s been very well prepared for him to be able to go out and execute it,” David said. “It’s just in his blood.”
Years before he entered high school, more than a decade before his professional debut, Ryan Weathers wrestled a first-ballot Hall of Famer. Observing the tussles inside the Cincinnati clubhouse, David Weathers would occasionally turn to a teammate and remark on a surreal sight.
“Ken Griffey Jr. has got my son in a headlock right now.”
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David and the iconic outfielder played together for the Reds from 2005-08, during some of a young left-hander’s formative years. Ryan was born in December 1999 and carried into a locker room four months later. In time, he became a fixture.
Before his fifth birthday, when David pitched for the New York Mets, Ryan began regularly accompanying his father to Shea Stadium. His mother, Kelli, home-schooled him early each fall and then again in the spring, allowing the family to travel as a unit. David and Kelli noticed a couple things early on. As a 6-year-old, Ryan sat through entire games, rapt by the action. At night, he fell asleep clutching a glove.
“I got to see my dad do it, and I wanted to do it, too,” Ryan said. “I don’t think I ever really thought of anything else other than baseball.”
He experienced full immersion after David signed with the Reds in late 2004. At Great American Ball Park, Ryan occupied a locker next to his father’s. He befriended Griffey, Adam Dunn and other players. During games in 2008 and 2009, he sometimes sat in the dugout beside manager Dusty Baker.
Ryan also helped clubhouse attendants fold clothes. He attempted to stay out of the way. His father stressed the value of work ethic and an appreciation of their surroundings. He taught him to respect big leaguers, particularly those who had achieved longevity in an unforgiving game.
“This is a privilege,” David told Ryan. “This is not something that’s just given to you.”
Good luck to @RyanDWeathers25 on his first big league start tonight for @Padres against @Dodgers Photos are from June 10th 2006 with David Weathers. I got yelled at by the @Reds PR guy for being on the field, but David stood up for me. @MLB @LaVidaBaseball @MLBNetwork
#baseball pic.twitter.com/oodnurjoAs— Rob Cuni (@robcuniphoto) April 16, 2021
The Reds maintained a welcoming environment. As many as a dozen kids traveled with the team. In New York, when employees from the commissioner’s office visited the clubhouse, the players would hide Ryan and his friends in a laundry cart. “They’d throw towels over the top of us,” Ryan said, “and they’d roll us into the field.”
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There, he received an advanced education. A frequent participant in early batting practice, Ryan would stand at first base and catch major leaguers’ throws. Closer to game time, he would move to the outfield.
Even at that age, he demonstrated uncommon poise. While shagging fly balls in his first visit to Philadelphia, he feinted as if he were going to lob souvenirs to fans crowded along the outfield wall. Then, instead, he threw the baseballs toward a bucket on the field. The trick was met with a chorus.
“Eight years old, getting booed, that was pretty funny,” Ryan said.
“He acted like one of the guys when he was out there,” Harang said. “It was really fun to watch.”
Harang and others on the team came to believe Ryan might end up a professional hitter. On many afternoons, with David pitching to him in the outfield, Ryan would launch non-regulation homers into the second deck. Away from the field, he spent hours in the batting cage, absorbing knowledge from big league hitters and their coaches.
David, meanwhile, helped his son consider multiple paths. He saw how Ryan relished both sides of the game. So, in addition to hitting, they honed his pitching mechanics. Years earlier, before he became a father, David had dreamed of the possibilities.
“I prayed for a switch-hitting catcher or a left-handed pitcher,” David said, “because both are in high demand.”
Ryan Weathers was a sophomore in high school when he realized he wanted to pitch for a living. It was summertime, and he was playing for a gifted travel ballclub. As 15-year-olds, they faced teams of 18-year-olds. And Weathers was excelling against older players, at the plate and on the mound.
By then, though, his left arm had emerged as the main attraction. Weathers possessed easy velocity and a knack for putting the baseball where he wanted. He had not yet been fully unleashed; his father, the pitching coach at Tennessee’s Loretto High School, would not permit Ryan and others to throw breaking balls until later in their amateur careers.
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“I think that’s why he has such good fastball, change-up command,” David Weathers said. “That’s all we threw, was located fastballs.”
As Ryan grew stronger and threw harder, he retained the ability to pinpoint. He dominated his competition, putting a small-town school on the map. As a junior, he and his father helped lead Loretto High to a Tennessee state championship. As a senior, he returned to the title game and threw nine shutout innings in a 12-inning loss. Between the two seasons, he logged a 0.11 ERA.
The latter campaign made Weathers the Gatorade National Baseball Player of the Year, a distinction that had gone to such prep stars as Zack Greinke and Clayton Kershaw. It also confirmed the Padres’ interest: They drafted him seventh overall in June 2018, then gave him more than $5 million to forgo a commitment to Vanderbilt University. Some talent evaluators predicted the lefty with the advanced command and the big league pedigree would reach the majors in three years.
He made it in just over two. In October, after shining at the Padres’ alternate training site, he parachuted into Game 1 of the National League Division Series, the hardest of landings. Weathers, then only 20, stuck the dismount, tossing 1 1/3 scoreless innings against the eventual World Series champions. Standing beside Kelli in a section high up at Globe Life Field, David celebrated and exhaled.
“That was one of the best moments we’ve had together, getting to see all the time that he and I had put in for years and years and getting the reward and seeing the fruit of that,” Ryan said. “That was awesome.”
Speaking by phone, David recalled another shared memory, one that had nothing to do with his own big league career. It might be his favorite. When Loretto High won its state baseball title in 2017, it was the school’s first. The city of Loretto erupted. David and Kelli beamed. They had both grown up there, attending Loretto High themselves. This was a collective accomplishment.
A year earlier, when Chicago White Sox first baseman Adam LaRoche abruptly retired amid a controversy involving his son, David empathized with the decision. The former pitcher had once considered playing a 20th season. Instead, with his three children all approaching school age, he opted to go home for good.
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“I 100 percent commend and understand why Adam LaRoche did what he did,” said David, whose older daughter, Karly, recently committed to play basketball at the University of Alabama. Ally, a ninth-grader, is a promising athlete herself. “Man, I’m telling you. Your family is more important than playing a game.”
After the Padres were eliminated by the Dodgers last fall, Ryan Weathers returned to Loretto. He had gone home for the offseason but, in another sense, was determined to stay. He approached his father with a question: What do I gotta do?
“It’s the big leagues,” Weathers said. “Nobody wants to leave this place. It is the best baseball in the world, and it’s the most fun baseball in the world. It’s the best players in the world. I just want to play against the best players I can possibly play against. I didn’t want that to change.”
David Weathers prescribed a regimen that emphasized conditioning. Ryan heeded his father’s wisdom, as he had since he was a kid. “Even now, I always trust what he says,” Ryan said. Soon, he saw results.
Over the offseason, Ryan shed about 20 pounds. He changed his diet, ran outdoors several times a week and altered his routine in the weight room. Heavy upper-body days dropped off the menu. Ryan instead focused on his legs and his core; meanwhile, he performed maintenance work above the waist. In his first bullpen session of the winter, he noticed a difference: With a stronger base and more flexibility up top, he was throwing his fastball with unusual life.
The Padres noticed, too. David, who played for Larry Rothschild in Florida, regularly spoke with the San Diego pitching coach. General manager A.J. Preller and field coordinator Chris Kemp flew to Tennessee to watch Ryan throw. Before spring training, Rothschild suggested that the prospect might be ready to leapfrog more experienced pitchers.
So far, Ryan has proven him correct. In the preseason, he displayed an improved slider and consistent fastball velocity in the mid-90s. On April 1, he was the second-youngest player on an Opening Day roster, older than only Washington infielder Luis García. He made his major-league regular-season debut two days later, collecting a three-inning save in a shutout of Arizona. On the mound at Petco Park, he looked wholly at ease.
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“I told myself, ‘You’re not gonna have a more stressful 20 pitches than what you had last October,’” Ryan said.
“He’s 21 going on 60,” David said.
Ryan and David Weathers. (Photo courtesy of the Weathers family)
Ryan has since continued pitching beyond his years. Through four appearances, he owns a 0.93 ERA. His older teammates — in other words, all of them — have noted a quiet demeanor, a willingness to ask questions and, when he pitches, an attacking mentality. Harang, a former Padres pitcher and native San Diegan, says his three children have clamored for Ryan Weathers jerseys.
If Ryan appears less than overwhelmed, that’s because it’s true. After all, he once shared a clubhouse with Ken Griffey Jr.
“To Ryan, he’s just Junior,” David said. “And Junior was great to him, so it’s kind of hard to go above that. I think that’s why Ryan handles the big league locker room.”
Back then, of course, Ryan Weathers did not fully grasp the magnitude of every experience. Now, this is his job. Seeking length and a strike-thrower, the Padres inserted him into their rotation last week. Their need has only grown more acute. Adrian Morejon, another young starter, underwent Tommy John surgery Tuesday. On Wednesday, 2020 Cy Young contender Dinelson Lamet left his season debut with forearm tightness. So, Thursday night, for the second time in less than a week, Weathers will duel Dodgers ace Walker Buehler.
The matchup might intimidate others in his position, but Weathers remembers being awed just once in his baseball upbringing. It was in October in Texas. At the hotel the Padres and Dodgers shared inside the postseason bubble, he found himself crossing paths with Clayton Kershaw, a left-hander he had intently watched for years.
“I know it’s the Dodgers and it’s our rival, but he’s been somebody I’ve always admired since I’ve been a freshman in high school,” Weathers said. “That’s the first time I’ve ever truly been starstruck where I didn’t even know what language I was speaking. … I’m still a fan at heart, a little kid at heart, when I see all these guys playing. It’s a lot of fun.”
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No matter Thursday’s outcome, the Padres believe Weathers will pitch opposite Kershaw soon enough. Regardless of this season’s results, they believe he should be an eventual fixture in their rotation. He has spent his entire life preparing for these moments. For that, he can thank his father, but David Weathers would rather look toward Ryan’s own future.
“I hope that the greatest thing that I pass to him is that one day … your reciprocation to me is I want you to instill the same things in your kid,” David said. “And I think he gets that.”
(Top photo: Matt Thomas / San Diego Padres / Getty Images)
