Angels pitcher Jered Weaver has tight nerves in his neck

Jered Weaver slowly leaned over at his locker Friday morning. He was asked how he felt.

“I feel like Jered Weaver,” he replied.

It looked like Weaver was uncomfortable.

Later in the day, the 33-year-old right-hander would meet with the Angels’ orthopedic physician to hear more about the state of his neck.

Weaver underwent an MRI examination Thursday, one day after he gave up three home runs and struggled mightily during a spring game outing. He said it revealed tightening of the nerves in his neck, a long-standing source of pain.

Before, he did not think it had any effect on his pitching.

“Now,” he said, “maybe it has something to do with it.

“It’s not painful. It’s just restricted,” Weaver added. “It’s not functioning the way I know it can function. I just feel like there’s neck tension that’s causing me to not be able to throw the ball like I want to.”

Weaver said there was also tension in his right shoulder. When he was pulled out of a start last September with shoulder discomfort, he said he had been dealing with the soreness “for about nine years.”

He said he spoke to Dodgers starter Scott Kazmir about a similar condition Kazmir once had. The ex-Angel suggested Weaver undergo dry-needling treatment, a practice similar to acupuncture.

Weaver said he had several sessions over the off-season and felt some benefits but stopped when “it got a little bit too weird for me.”

“There’s something about putting needles in your neck I wasn’t really too comfortable with,” he said.

Angels Manager Mike Scioscia wanted to wait for a report from the team physician, Robert Grumet, before he revealed a course of action. He noted that pitchers struggle with nebulous ailments and that Weaver in particular had demonstrated the ability to pitch through various maladies.

“But we want to make sure that this is something that if you do need to grind through, great, he will,” Scioscia said. “And, if it’s something he needs some time to let it calm down, that’s where we’ll go. We just don’t want to miss any steps and make sure that he’s ready to go for the start of the season.”

Short hops

On Monday, members of the Angels’ front office will meet with Tyrone Brooks, recently hired by Major League Baseball as the senior director of its new front office and field staff diversity pipeline program, designed to add minority and female candidates to the employee pool. … The Angels came to contract agreements with all 22 players in their organization with between one day and three years of big league service time. Most prominent among those are right-hander Matt Shoemaker, left-handers Andrew Heaney and Tyler Skaggs, first baseman C.J. Cron and second baseman Johnny Giavotella.

Follow Pedro Moura on Twitter: @pedromoura