NEW YORK — Yankees fans chanted “Luuuuuuuuke” when the bullpen gate opened Monday night and No. 30 in pinstripes started jogging in from the outfield to the mound with a soft rock tune that’s almost 50 years old blaring from the Yankee Stadium sound system.
Luke Weaver has come around to Gary Wright’s “Dream Weaver,” which climbed to No. 2 on the USA Billboard top 100 shortly after its December 1975 release.
The Yankees’ rising star reliever didn’t pick it as his walk-off song and he thought it was a jinx initially, but his last name is in the title and the first two lines of the chorus are perfect for someone holding his job title:
Ooh, dream weaver
I believe you can get me through the night
Once again, Weaver got the Yankees through the night with a postseason save that was similar to many of franchise great Mariano Rivera’s. This one was a five-out job that closed a 5-2 victory over the Cleveland Guardians in Game 1 of the American League Championship Series.
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Most closers nowadays pitch the ninth inning, and that’s it. Weaver entered in the eighth when he saved all three of the Yankees’ Division Series wins against the Royals, and that’s when he got the call again in the ALCS opener.
He replaced lefty Tim Hill with one out, a run in, runners on the corners and the tying run coming to the plate, then put out the fire.
David Frye, the Guardians’ No. 2 hitter, struck out and Jose Ramirez, their best hitter for a long time, grounded out weakly to second base to end the inning.
In the Cleveland ninth, with Weaver’s fastball velocity down a tick and his command not as its best, he walked the leadoff hitter. Then after a strikeout, he went 3-0 on the next hitter. One more ball and the tying run was coming up again.
It was time for Weaver to give himself a pep talk:
“What are we doing? The fans don’t come here to watch that.”
It worked.
Weaver struck out David Schneemann and Austin Hedges to end the game and cue to Sinatra.
“I felt like the adrenaline coming out of the eighth and going back out to the ninth was a little depleted.” Weaver said. “I was trying to ramp back up.”
Weaver gave it his all, and the results were great once again: 1.2 scoreless innings with no hits, no runs, one walk and four strikeouts.
But there’s not a lot of meat on his 6-foot-3, 183-pound bones and Aaron Boone has used him in every playoff game so far, and for four outs once and five outs twice. The results have been Mariano-esque, six scoreless innings with saves in all four of the Yankees wins while pitching five times in 10 days.
Weaver threw 24 pitches in Monday’s game. That could make him unavailable for Tuesday night’s Game 2. He also threw 24 in Game 1 of the ALDS and four in the second, but there was a day off in-between.
The Yankees still have to win three games to get to their first World Series since 2009 and maybe play six Cleveland more times. If they make it to the World Series, there could be seven more games against the NL champ, the Dodgers or Mets.
Can this skinny fellow hold up?
“Well, I’ve used the term wiry,” Weaver said with a smile. “I’m not going to be offended by the skinniness of that comment.”
After thinking for a half second, he continued with a thoughtful response.
“That’s a great question. There’s no real recipe. It’s just about waking up and finding the ways efficiently to like, ‘All right, how am I going to operate today?’ I think it’s normal type of stuff — eating right, sleeping, spending your time with your kids. Maybe there’s some extra adrenaline rushes there.
“Maybe they haven’t acted the right way, so you kind of spike some adrenaline and then you get the body really going. But if they’re behaving well, then it’s going to be a harder day to try to get the juices flowing. No I’m kidding, but it’s tough. It’s different. It’s nothing I’ve never had to do before.
“It’s something that I’m learning along the way and I’m trying to ask questions, find ways to recover. I think at the end of the day, it’s just the will of wanting to go out there and get the rock and do it and just figuring out the next moment.”
During home games, Weaver may be a little adrenalin boost coming into games with his walk-in song playing.
Whomever picked it for him, he thought about telling the Yankees to scrap it after it was used for the first time on May 22, the night his 17-inning, five-week scoreless streak ended.
“I was rocking no walkout,” Weaver said. “Next thing I know, I got Dream Weaver, and I think it broke a streak for me of scoreless innings. I wasn’t happy at the time, but it was not someone’s fault that they changed the song.
“So it’s been that ever since. It’s just a little play on words.”
The Yankees couldn’t have dreamed up anything better than what transpired after Clay Holmes lost his closer job following a blown save at Texas on Sept .3.
The Yankees intended to go with a closer by committee, but Weaver was given a first chance to save a game that weekend and pitched a 1-2-3 ninth inning in a win at Wrigley Field. Over the next three-plus weeks, he was given three more chances to close and picked up three more saves while pitching two innings in one of them and 1.2 in another.
Even better for the Yankees, while Weaver has been just as good in the playoffs, Holmes has been piling up scoreless outings in every game pitching in high-leverage roles.
But the Yankees are concerned about Weaver’s heavy workload.
“We’ve got to be smart about it,” Yankees pitching coach Matt Blake said after Game 1. “Usually he’s pretty efficient, but it’s one of those things where we’re going to have to keep evaluating after each game to see where he’s at availability wise.”
When Boone and Boone ask Weaver how he’s feeling, they might not always get an honest answer.
“Do you think I’d tell you if I was tired?” Weaver said. “I’m ready to go.”
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Randy Miller may be reached at [email protected].
