Weaver regains confidence
ST. LOUIS -- You want to know why Jeff Weaver was available to the St. Louis Cardinals?
Sixteen games, 88 2/3 innings, 114 hits and 62 earned runs allowed, adding up to a 3-10 record with a 6.29 ERA.
That's why.
Weaver put up those numbers in the months of April, May , and June of this very year. If he had only been bad, the Orange County American League Baseball Representative might have kept him. The Angels are no different than any other contemporary major league baseball team. They need pitching.
Take another look at those numbers. That's not pitching. That's run-dispensing.
So guess who was the winning pitcher as the St. Louis Cardinals beat the New York Mets to take a 3-2 lead heading back to New York in the NLCS? Yup, him.
How is this possible? Maybe Tony La Russa and Dave Duncan really are geniuses.
Handed the ball twice in this rather important series by his skipper, Weaver has twice done the job for his team. In Game 1 he made one mistake in 5 2/3 innings and Carlos Beltran hit it over the fence to provide the only runs in a 2-0 Mets victory. No disgrace there. And last night he out pitched Game 1 opponent Tom Glavine, turning in six solid innings as the Cardinals delighted a red-clad, white towel-waving gathering of 46,496 with a 4-2 triumph.
Weaver a post season mainstay. Once again, we are reminded that in the matter of Truth vs. Fiction, you're wise to take Truth, plus the points, every time.
For Weaver was well on his way to being one of the most maligned pitchers of our time. He was a Capital F. Flop, in New York after the Yankees brought him in from the Tigers back in 2002. He was one of those guys who found the whole New York/Back Page Of The Tabloid thing too much to handle. After a 7-9, 5.99 season in 2003, he moved across the country to the somewhat safer environment of Los Angeles, where he was a reliable (27-24 with ERAs in the low 4s) pitcher for two seasons with the Dodgers. The one thing you could say about him was that he was durable. He made 34 starts each year while throwing 220 and 224 innings, respectively. In modern baseball, just answering the bell that often makes a pitcher useful, perhaps even valuable.
Moving down the freeway a bit to Anaheim, he seemed to have lost it all. So why would the Cardinals pick him up?
``Well, the first thing is that we had need," explained La Russa. ``Then, he was available [for a minor league outfielder]. We knew he was a guy with a track record of success, and, more importantly, a very good competitor, which, I think counts for a lot. [Pitching coach] Dave Duncan watches tapes, and he knew he was healthy. I know we placed a couple of calls to people who knew Jeff, and they said, `He would be good for your team,' and they hit it right on the nose."
Duncan, as always, was a key. La Russa just naturally assumed his esteemed pitching mentor would figure out just what was ailing the 30-year-old righthander.
``I think when Jeff came over he was pretty beat up," Duncan explained. ``You know, he reall y had a tough season. I think he had lost a lot of confidence. The main thing was to help him regain his confidence. We tried various things, and his confidence grew as he threw the ball better and got better results."
``It was a fresh start," said Weaver. ``I was back in the National League, where I had prior success the past couple of years, and it brought back that confidence. My thought process was that things happen for a reason. I knew this team was heading for the post season, and I was just concentrating on winning games and erasing what happened before I got here. I don' t even remember the first half of the season."
La Russa was practically giddy in evaluating the job Weaver did against the best batting order in the National League last night. ``Against that team you don't have innings where you can just flip it up there," La Russa said.
The only inning in which he buckled was the fourth, when he gave up a two-run double to Jose Valentin. But his team got those two runs back for him and he took charge, pitching through the sixth, an inning in which he retired the dangerous David Wright to start and then negotiated his way through three lefthanded hitters.
``The sixth is a key inning," Weaver said. ``That's the bridge inning to get to the role guys and allow them to pitch in situations where they're comfortable."
It would be hard to overstate the scope of Weaver's contribution. He beat the only legitimate starting pitcher the Mets have to offer in their current state, and now the Cardinals will have a chance to close it out tonight with their best pitcher, Chris Carpenter, going up against Mets rookie John Maine.
``It's just a good feeling," Weaver said. ``Now we've got Chris Carpenter on the hill, and we couldn't ask for a better situation."
What all this means is that there is absolutely no connection between the dynamics of a 162-game season and the dynamics of a short series. It doesn't matter that the Mets romped through the National League. And it doesn't matter that Weaver was a complete mess in Anaheim.
Weaver was a very good pitcher last night. La Russa is correct. Whoever told him that a guy with a 6.29 ERA could help his team really did hit it right on the nose, all right.
Bob Ryan is a Globe columnist. His e-mail address is ryan@globe.com. 
