Miami Marlins’ Jorge Soler: ‘I don’t think I’ll be back this year’
Outfielder Jorge Soler confirmed that his first season with the Miami Marlins is all but over as he continues to rehab a lower back injury.
“I don’t think I’ll be back this year,” Soler said pregame before the Marlins played a doubleheader against the Texas Rangers at loanDepot park. The outfielder added this is the first time in his playing career he has dealt with a back injury and that he will rehab in Miami for the next month.
Marlins manager Don Mattingly intimated Saturday that Soler likely would not return this season considering the bumps in the road of his rehab for the back injury that placed him on the injured list on July 23. Soler also missed a couple weeks at the end of June and start of July with a pelvis injury.
“Soli’s kind of been a little bit ‘feel 100 percent, feel 100 percent, feel a little something, feel 100 percent, feel 100 percent, feels a little something,’” Mattingly said. “It seems like [a return this season] is probably out the window.”
It puts a tough end to a frustrating season for the 30-year-old slugger who signed as a free agent with the Marlins about a week into spring training.
“It’s really hard,” Soler said. “You try your best. You continue to work hard. You play through the pain. It’s something that you have to work to get better. I’ve been trying my best to get better and you don’t see the successes right there. It’s just a continuous effort.”
In 72 games this season, Soler hit just .207 with a .695 on-base-plus-slugging mark but had 13 home runs — which had him on pace for 29 home runs over a full 162-game season — and 34 RBI.
“It was not the ideal season for any of us,” Soler said. “Not for me, not for the whole team. We didn’t [live up to] the expectation that everybody was actually waiting for. We just have to keep working hard and work for that next season.”
Will that next Marlins season include Soler. He has a $15 million player option for the 2023 season and a $9 million player option for the 2024 season.
“I haven’t thought about it,” Soler said. “My agent and I have not thought about it.”
This story was originally published September 12, 2022 at 11:57 AM.
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