Urena established his health. Can he establish his spot back in the Marlins rotation?
Jose Urena entered each of the past two seasons as the first pitcher to take the mound for the Miami Marlins.
This year, Urena enters spring training with a chip on his shoulder and having to fight for his spot on the Opening Day roster.
He is expected to be part of the rotation this season, Marlins manager Don Mattingly said Wednesday on the first day that pitchers and catchers reported for spring training at the Roger Dean Chevrolet Stadium complex.
How the rotation fully shakes out will be determined over the next six weeks.
But one thing is certain: The Marlins need their starting pitchers to take the next step if they want to make their next strides going into Year 3 of their rebuild and improve from the floor that was a National League-worst 57-105 season in 2019.
“You have to actually move forward,” Mattingly said. “One of the things going from one season to the next, especially with young players, there’s that time away from the field where you’re not trying to compete on an everyday basis. You get to go home for the winter and kind of process it all. Sometimes, coming into the season, it frees them up to make some steps forward. We’ll be looking for guys to keep moving forward, keep getting better, improving.”
Urena, 28, was the club’s Opening Day starter in both 2018 and 2019 but finished last season as a late-inning reliever after suffering a herniated disc in his lower back midway through the season. Urena went 4-10 with a 5.21 ERA, 62 strikeouts and three saves over 24 appearances (13 starts).
“He established health when he came back last year,” Mattingly said. “Our reason for trying him in the pen was really that we didn’t think we could get him ready to get out there and throw 75 or 80 pitches, but we did think we could get him ready to throw an inning. That’s the route we went with him to get him confident and past the injury. We’ll get him ready.”
Urena, originally signed as an international free agent out of the Dominican Republic in 2009, has a career 4.57 ERA a 32-43 record and 391 strikeouts against 195 walks over 573 2/3 innings. He put together solid seasons in 2017 (14-7 record, 3.82 ERA in 34 games and 28 starts) and 2018 (9-12 record, 3.98 ERA in 31 starts) before the injury hampered his 2019 campaign.
Prior to the injury, which kept him out for two months, Urena went 4-7 with 4.70 ERA and had a streak of nine consecutive starts with at least six innings pitched. Eight of those outings were quality starts, defined as throwing at least six innings while giving up no more than three earned runs.
Urena’s final 11 times on the mound: 10 earned runs and three home runs allowed in 10 innings, three saves in five opportunities, a .318 batting average against and 11 strikeouts against three walks.
“The process was long,” Urena said. “I’m thankful that everything’s going well. I feel great. I’m ready to help this team and keep fighting. You can’t give up. You have to work every day.”
As the Marlins’ roster is constructed, Sandy Alcantara and Caleb Smith will likely hold down the top two spots of Miami’s starting rotation heading into the season. Mattingly on Wednesday said the team’s Opening Day starter is to be determined.
That means Urena is competing with Pablo Lopez, Jordan Yamamoto, Elieser Hernandez, Robert Dugger and Nick Neidert in spring training for those final three rotation spots.
Top prospects Sixto Sanchez and Edward Cabrera will likely start the season in Triple A Wichita and at best be call-ups late in the season.
The Marlins’ hope is the starting rotation resembles the group from before the All-Star break last season, one that ranked second in the National League East, fourth in the NL and seventh in MLB with a collective 3.96 ERA before fading down the stretch.
“Everybody knows that we have a lot of young guys on the team,” Alcantara said. “But that doesn’t matter. All we have to do is make the most of the opportunity, surprise some people and compete.”
▪ Mattingly acknowledged that Brandon Kintzler has the most closing experience among the Marlins relievers at camp but did not go as far as to name him their closer. “He’s had success there. Obviously we have guys with big stuff. We’re going to look at some options, but that’s one guy I was excited about because you know you have a guy back there who at least going into camp has established himself in that role in the past.”
▪ Only one player slated to report on Wednesday did not make it to Jupiter. Catcher Santiago Chavez, a non-roster invite, was dealing with a visa issue. He is expected to be in town on Thursday.
This story was originally published February 12, 2020 at 4:29 PM.
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