NEW YORK (AP) — Luke Weaver confessed to telling Clay Holmes a white lie and felt no shame about it.
Following his escape from a bases-loaded situation with no outs during the New York Mets’ 6-3 Subway Series victory against the Yankees on Saturday evening, Weaver made it a point to contact his teammate who had departed Friday’s game with a leg fracture.
“When I saw him I just was like: ‘That was in honor of you. I even had your name written in my hat,’” Weaver recalled saying.
However, the relief pitcher confessed he made up that motivational detail.
“I didn’t, but it just felt right to say,” he told reporters. “Kids, don’t lie to your parents.”
“Clay would probably be disappointed that I wasn’t thinking about him out there on the mound,” Weaver added, “but the situation obviously presented itself pretty quickly.”
One day after Holmes suffered a broken right fibula from Spencer Jones’ line drive back to the mound, the Mets held a 5-2 advantage when the Yankees filled the bases in the seventh inning following rookie right fielder Carsen Benge’s dropped catch of Cody Bellinger’s fly ball, which allowed Aaron Judge to cross home plate.
Weaver, who departed the Yankees in December for a $22 million, two-year contract with the Mets, rushed from the bullpen to replace Brooks Raley. Weaver focused on “not twisting an ankle or something.”
“I run in pretty fast. I just think that’s more of an adrenaline spike,” he said. “but the first few steps always are unpleasant and then the ankles start to loosen up a bit.”
He eliminated Amed Rosario and Trent Grisham with changeups after establishing 0-2 counts on both batters, then forced Anthony Volpe into a groundout that ended the inning.
“He was pretty fired up,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said.
Weaver’s fastball velocity reached 96.1 mph on average, which was 1.4 mph higher than his seasonal norm.
“I don’t think he’s extra fired up. I think that’s who he is. I think that’s what he brings to the table every time,” said Juan Soto, who had a pair of hits and walked twice.
Weaver returned for the eighth inning, marking his first multi-inning appearance since May of the previous year. He concluded the eighth by getting Judge out on a fly ball.
“A little smirk,” Weaver revealed. “I did say I would acknowledge him at the plate. I didn’t do that a few years ago, and he let me have it. But yeah, it was a cool opportunity to finish that outing against one of the greatest we’ve ever seen and one of best people you’ve ever known.”
The crowd at Citi Field was energetic, particularly during Judge and Soto’s at-bats.
“I enjoyed every bit of it.” Soto said. “Definitely, there’s some weird words that they say out there. Most of them, I don’t understand it, but, yeah, it’s really cool.”
Having won four of their last five contests, the Mets moved to 19-26 but stayed in last place within the NL East division.
“I think tonight I wanted people to know, especially my teammates, that’s what we’re capable of,” Weaver said. “We could beat great teams in this league and it just takes some fundamental baseball. It takes big moments. It takes some mistakes that we bounce back from.”
Holmes, who joined the Mets from the Yankees following the 2024 season, will probably remain out of action until August at the earliest. Weaver doesn’t plan to actually inscribe Holmes’ name in his cap going forward.
“I certainly will not. That would violate a best friendship that I’m striving for and it would just be a little too much too quick,” he said. “He seems like a guy that’s got a lot of friends but not a lot of best friends, so that’s always a challenge, trying to just get something you can’t have.”
