What the Miami Marlins can take away from their season-opening series with the Rays
The Miami Marlins went 1-2 against the Tampa Bay Rays in their first series of the 2021 season. There was some good and some bad to take away from the first set of games at the newly named loanDepot park.
Here are five.
▪ The lineup has potential: The Marlins hope Opening Night, when they were held to three hits in a shutout loss, was an anomaly.
Because the bats came alive on Friday and Saturday.
Miami’s lineup tallied 24 hits and scored 16 runs over the final two games of the series, highlighted by Saturday’s 12-7 win to close out the set and avoid a series sweep.
And while this sentence will be prefaced by the disclaimer that it’s three days into the season, the following two statistics need to be noted.
Through games played on Saturday, the Marlins rank 10th in MLB with a .747 OPS (on-base percentage plus slugging). They also lead the league with six stolen bases. No other team has more than three.
“We’re out there to pick a bone with somebody,” first baseman/outfielder Garrett Cooper said. “There’s a lot of talk that we’re not going to score runs. I think one through nine, we’re trying to shove it to somebody.”
Center fielder Starling Marte, hitting second in the lineup, paced the team with seven hits over the series. Adam Duvall and Cooper have hit home runs. Jazz Chisholm Jr. is one of three players in all of MLB with multiple stolen bases (also the Cubs’ Javier Baez and the Blue Jays’ Marcus Semien). Miguel Rojas is showing he can be a capable leadoff hitter against left-handed pitching.
“I think that’s what we envisioned for our club,” Marlins manager Don Mattingly said. “Not necessarily that we’re going to go out and score a ton of runs every night, but we do think we’re pretty balanced up and down the lineup. ... I think we kind of broke out [Friday] night and that just kind of broke the ice. It seems like we just kind of continued on [Saturday], which is a good thing for us.”
▪ Finding at-bats for everyone: The Marlins’ main problem with the lineup? Figuring out how to get everyone into the game. Not having a designated hitter in the National League this year hurts Miami on this front because now one of Corey Dickerson, Jesus Aguilar, Duvall or Cooper is going to be on the bench when the Marlins roll out their main lineup because there are only three spots in the field for those four (first base, left field, right field).
Mattingly has been sitting left-handed-hitting Dickerson against left-handed pitching, but there’s a conundrum with the three righties. They’ll rotate on a daily basis.
▪ Starting pitching depth will be tested: The early results from Sandy Alcantara (six scoreless innings, two hits and two walks allowed, seven strikeouts) and Pablo Lopez (five scoreless innings, two hits and two walks allowed, four strikeouts) were promising.
But the Marlins are mostly unproven after that, especially if Elieser Hernandez has to miss an extended period of time.
The Marlins pulled Hernandez from Saturday’s game one batter into the third inning after his fastball velocity took a noticeable dip. He was diagnosed with right biceps tendon inflammation.
“Obviously,” Mattingly said, “it’s something that we’ll have to be careful with.”
Should Hernandez miss playing time, it will put a test on Miami’s starting pitching depth.
The team is already without Sixto Sanchez, who is dealing with mild inflammation in his throwing shoulder. With Sanchez sidelined, and with three off days in the first 19 days of the season, the Marlins began with a four-man rotation of Sandy Alcantara, Pablo Lopez, Hernandez and Trevor Rogers.
Rogers makes his first start of the season Monday against the St. Louis Cardinals.
Sixto Sanchez, the club’s top pitching prospect and a top-25 prospect in all of baseball, is also sidelined while dealing with inflammation in the back of his throwing shoulder. Fellow top pitching prospect Edward Cabrera is dealing with an inflamed nerve in his right biceps.
Prospects Nick Neidert, Daniel Castano and Braxton Garrett are the Marlins’ top internal candidates to join the rotation. Should the Marlins target a veteran free agent, Rick Porcello and Anibal Sanchez are two of the top names still on the open market.
“Our depth’s going to be tested right away,” Mattingly said. “So hold on. Here we go.”
▪ What to make of the bullpen: Upgrading the bullpen was one of the Marlins’ top priorities this offseason.
One series into the 2021 season, there have been mixed results from key players.
Yimi Garcia, one of two holdovers from last year, gave up a solo home run to Austin Meadows in the eighth inning Thursday — the only run of the game — and then bounced back on Friday with a 14-pitch scoreless eighth inning.
Anthony Bass gave up four runs in the ninth inning on Friday — including a go-ahead three-run home run to Joey Wendle — and then threw a perfect frame on Saturday to seal the Marlins’ first win.
Richard Bleier gave up a home run on Friday and had a perfect seventh inning on Saturday.
Mattingly said the home runs surrendered were a matter of pitchers missing their spots, something they will improve upon as the season progresses.
▪ Rule 5 debuts: Both Marlins relief pitchers with Rule 5 restrictions — Paul Campbell and Zach Pop — made their MLB debuts on Saturday in tough situations and handled themselves fine.
Campbell, listed as the Marlins’ No. 25 overall prospect by MLB Pipeline and obtained in December’s Rule 5 Draft from the Rays, relieved Hernandez after his injury and threw two innings. He was charged with three earned runs, although two of those were given up when Adam Cimber allowed inherited runners to score.
Pop, nearly two years removed from Tommy John surgery and his last live professional appearance, entered in the sixth inning with the game tied 6-6 and needed just seven pitches to retire the side. His sinker topped at 98.2 mph and showed plenty of movement that will result in swings and misses down the road.
This story was originally published April 4, 2021 at 10:32 AM.
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