No Longer Perfect, but Still Special

It took nearly three months and nearly 85 innings, but young Jered Weaver has finally learned baseball’s two most important words.

It took a muggy August night, a Big Papi, a hasty Dino, and 107 wearying pitches, all for the dispensation of two words.

A magical rookie season unmasked by two words.

Nobody’s perfect.

On his 13th start, Weaver was finally unlucky, suffering the first losing decision of his major league career after a summer full of the other kind.

A record of 9-0 slowly became 9-and-oh-no, then 9-and-ouch, then 9-and-eww, then, finally, 9-1.

A long-haired kid with a crooked smile kicked the dirt, threw out his hands, mumbled to himself, and walked away looking just a little bit older after the Angels’ 2-1 loss Thursday to the Boston Red Sox.

“It was fun while it lasted,” he said with a shrug.

Nobody’s perfect.

It was a game that Weaver deserved to win, and that the Angels should have won, but for a couple of those imperfections.

The fastballs that the kid curled past hitters while giving up only four hits in six innings?

He put one on a tee for David Ortiz in the fourth inning -- on a two-strike pitch no less -- and Big Papi hit it into the blackness beyond the right-field corner for a home run.

“One bad pitch, and the rest is history,” Weaver said.

One bad pitch, and Ortiz is now four for five against Weaver with a homer and three RBIs.

“The guy pretty much owns me,” Weaver said.

Join the club, kid.

Weaver quickly settled, as 23-year-olds-going-on-30 are wont to do.

None of the next eight hitters hit the ball into the outfield. Six of the next eight hitters struck out. Only one of the next 10 hitters reached base safely.

His fastball actually gained velocity as it crossed the plate. His curveball actually seemed to come from left field. The hitters swung their bats and shook their heads.

“He’s everything he’s cracked up to be,” said Boston’s Doug Mirabelli.

And then, still trailing 1-0 after six innings, Weaver was removed from the game while learning another lesson.

You cannot argue with Mike Scioscia.

When Weaver was told he would not be returning to the mound for the seventh inning, he approached the boss.

“I said, ‘Leave me out there,’ ” Weaver recalled. “I felt like I was getting stronger. It was the heat of the moment and I wanted to stay in the game.”

Scioscia’s response? What do you think?

“No,” he said, and that’s the long version.

The Angels are concerned that Weaver, in only his second professional season, is pitching in uncharted charts.

Last year, including the Arizona Fall League, he pitched in 100 2/3 innings.

This year, counting his time in triple-A Salt Lake City, he has pitched 161 1/3 innings with as many as half a dozen starts remaining.

Throw in a bout of biceps tendinitis and you have an entire dugout scribbling and adding and worrying.

Said Scioscia: “We need him for the long haul.”

Said Weaver: “I understand, but sometimes it’s just hard.”

It got harder when Weaver retired to the clubhouse where he watched Angels reliever Brendan Donnelly give up another run in the seventh, thanks in part to Orlando Cabrera’s ill-fated attempt to turn a double play by himself.

Then, in the bottom of the seventh, still watching on TV, Weaver saw his best chance at spitting the hook die at the swinging arms of third-base coach Dino Ebel.

It was Ebel who sent home Juan Rivera from second base with none out in the seventh inning on a single by Howie Kendrick.

Rivera, who could have been standing on third with two chances for an Angels sacrifice fly, was instead thrown out by left fielder Wily Mo Pena to the perfectly decoying Mirabelli, who didn’t move until he grabbed the throw and made the tag.

Yes, Weaver acknowledged, he was cheering at the television.

“It was like I was hoping I could help Juan get around there faster,” he said.

After that, there was nothing he could do but shower and dress and realize that even Whitey Ford -- whose 9-0 career-opening record he tied -- had days like this.

“It’s win some, lose some,” said Weaver who, until now, had been given a blessed reprieve from using that cliche.

He clearly already has the calm of a veteran, at least any veteran not named Brad Penny.

It is this maturity that helped pack Angels Stadium on Thursday with fans and admirers of all sorts.

This included Angels rookie phenom Wally Joyner, flying in from his Utah home on business, but stopping by to see the show.

“Watching him pitch, my wife and I have talked about Wallyworld, remembered those great times, he really reminds me of what it was like for me,” said Joyner, who hit 22 homers with 100 RBIs as a rookie in 1986.

No, he didn’t win rookie of the year, and Weaver probably started too late to win rookie of the year as well.

But the similarities are there.

“He seems so calm out there, so much in control,” said Joyner. “I had a wife and two children at home at the time, that’s what kept me grounded. I guess he has his brother [Jeff]. But it’s amazing.”

Perfect no more.

Perfectly amazing, still.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Plaschke, go to latimes.com/plaschke.