Elieser Hernandez, often overlooked among Marlins starters, has plans to keep improving
Elieser Hernandez keeps his focus internal. He’s his own critic and he ideally doesn’t like to compare his progress or production to those around him.
But when he does look around at his fellow starting pitchers that will likely make up the Miami Marlins’ rotation this season, it’s easy for him to relent that he’s occasionally in awe.
There are the elder statesmen in 25-year-old Sandy Alcantara and 24-year-old Pablo Lopez at the front of the order. There are the rising prospects in Sixto Sanchez, Trevor Rogers, Braxton Garrett and Nick Neidert competing for the back end jobs. (Edward Cabrera, sidelined with an inflamed nerve in his right bicep, should be noted here as well).
And firmly entrenched in the middle, there’s Elieser Hernandez, who shouldn’t be lost in the mix.
“I want to be in that rotation,” the 25-year-old Hernandez said Friday. “... I never compete against my teammates. I always compete against myself, but it would be great. They’re very talented and I would love to be with them.”
For all intents and purposes, Hernandez is part of the rotation. Marlins manager Don Mattingly has said as much multiple times. Mattingly considers Hernandez a veteran in this youth-laden group and was impressed with what Hernandez brought to the staff early in the shortened 2020 before he suffered a season-ending right lat strain.
“He was one of the top guys out there when the injury occurred,” Mattingly said of Hernandez, who went 1-0 with a 3.16 ERA over 25 2/3 innings with 34 strikeouts against five walks in six starts last season.
The next step in Hernandez’s progression is staying in games longer. His season long outing in 2020 was just 5 1/3 innings and he has made it through six innings in just five of 27 career starts.
A third pitch, Hernandez hopes, will help solve that problem.
Hernandez said he is working to re-incorporate his changeup into his pitch mix, which has been heavily fastball-slider the past two seasons. Opponents have hit just .189 (17 for 90) against the pitch all-time to this point in Hernandez’s short career.
“It works with his mix,” Mattingly said. “He’s the guy with a riding fastball at the top of the zone. It gives him that up-down, being able to go vertical, which is nice. That’s something that we’re trying to get into his repertoire. It was really good a couple of years ago. Just kind of lost the feel for it.”
Hernandez is ready to build on his successful if short 2020 season. He’s fully recovered from the lat injury and knows the team has confidence in him moving forward.
“.Just being able to be there in that spot, that position, they gave me the trust,” Hernandez said. “Once I was out there, I said ‘This is the moment to do my job and help the team.’”
Shorter spring games early on
As a new wrinkle this year as part of the league’s health and safety protocols, spring training games played between Feb. 27 and March 13 can be shortened from nine innings to five or seven games as long as it’s mutually agreed upon by both managers. Games on or after March 14 can be shortened to seven innings if the managers agree to that.
Mattingly said Saturday that, as of right now, the Marlins’ plan is for their first three games — Feb. 28 against the Houston Astros in West Palm Beach, March 1 against the New York Mets in Jupiter and March 2 against the St. Louis Cardinals in Jupiter — to be seven-inning contests. Mattingly said he anticipates the majority, if not all, of their remaining 21 Grapefruit League games to be nine innings.
“We’ve had a few guys that we’re bringing along slowly,” Mattingly said, “and then we’ve had some guys getting delayed getting into camp. So our first three, we’re ready for seven. After that, we’ll kind of play it by ear. ... We’re probably going to have more nines than sevens as we get going, but everything kind of depends on your pitching, how they’re ready, how we’re kind of building guys.”
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