The Arizona Fall League got underway on Tuesday afternoon for the Peoria Javelinas (the team in which the Reds share this season). Things didn’t look good early for the Javelinas, who trailed 3-0 after the top of the 1st inning and things didn’t get much better from there. They were trailing 5-1 heading into the bottom of the 8th inning, but hit around and took a 6-5 lead. That set up the appearance for Cincinnati Reds reliever Zack Weiss to come out and try to close the game.
In the 2015 regular season the right handed pitcher saved 30 games and had an ERA of 1.98 between his stops with the Daytona Tortugas and Pensacola Blue Wahoos. It was more of the same for Weiss in his Arizona Fall League debut as he needed just 15 pitches to toss a perfect inning and pick up the save.
The first batter of the inning battled hard but went down swinging after an 8-pitch at-bat for the first out of the inning. The next batter went down on a called third strike after a 5-pitch at bat. The final batter of the inning was retired on a fly ball to right field on the 2nd pitch and that ended the game.
Weiss averaged 94.5 MPH on his fastball on the day. He topped out at 95.8 MPH and bottomed out with his fastball at 93.2 MPH, throwing nine total fastballs in the game. Here is some video of Weiss from August.
Earlier in the game Layne Somsen made his AFL debut as well, but he ran into some troubles. The right hander allowed two runs in an inning of work with a walk. Alex Blandino was the lone Reds starting position player. He played at second base and went 0-4 with a line out, pop out, fly out to right and a ground out to second.