Gibson's extended relief outing backfires for Marlins

MIAMI -- It’s easy to second-guess decisions with the benefit of seeing the result play out.

Despite having a rested bullpen, Marlins manager Clayton McCullough elected to ride lefty Cade Gibson for 50 pitches -- the most for a Marlins reliever this season (Chris Paddack’s bulk outing April 5 notwithstanding) -- in a close ballgame.

Doing so played a pivotal role in Friday night’s 6-5 loss to the Phillies at loanDepot park, as Gibson gave up a four-spot in the decisive seventh.

“We're looking at a stretch of 26 [games] out of 27 days, 10 in a row here at home,” McCullough said “Gibby had the count to be able to do that in the upper 40s, 50 probably about a max effort for him. With the score of that game, with us being down, just trying to shorten it some. They strung some together there and ran it up on him.”

With the Marlins trailing 2-1 in the sixth, McCullough sent Gibson to the mound for his 2026 debut and for the first time in a week, when he pitched for Triple-A Jacksonville.

Edmundo Sosa and Alec Bohm each singled and Justin Crawford walked to load the bases with one out. Gibson escaped the jam by inducing an around-the-horn double play from switch-hitter Rafael Marchán to close out a 25-pitch frame.

In what likely was a surprising move to many, Gibson went back out for a second inning. Until Friday, Gibson’s season high for pitches was 36 on April 1 for the Jumbo Shrimp.

“I don't need any heads-up, just pitch till they come get me,” Gibson said. “Sometimes it goes your way. Sometimes it doesn’t.”

Kyle Schwarber struck out swinging on Gibson’s curveball before Bryce Harper rocketed a double to the right-center gap. Two batters later, Gibson hit Brandon Marsh with a sinker. At this point, right-hander Lake Bachar had begun warming up in the bullpen.

But Gibson stayed on the mound to face a pair of batters for the second time of the appearance, and for the fourth instance of his young career.

“The movement of the breaking balls was still good,” McCullough said. “He really spun some good breaking balls, the horizontal [movement] on those was good. It was asking a lot of him.”

It didn’t go well.

Sosa singled to right to drive in a run. Gibson then got ahead 0-2 on Bryson Stott but misfired twice to even the count. Stott didn’t miss Gibson’s next pitch, a hanging slider, for a three-run blast to right that broke the game open at the time.

That brought McCullough out of the dugout one batter too late.

Since McCullough became manager in 2025, he has permitted a reliever to throw at least 50 pitches 19 times. Gibson was one of those instances on May 12, 2025, tossing three scoreless innings on 51 pitches. Miami has gone 3-16 in those contests. Ten of those were decided by three runs or fewer. Many of them featured swingmen. Only two of those had as few outs recorded as Gibson on Friday (five).

In need of a fresh arm, Miami will option Gibson back to Jacksonville ahead of Saturday’s game because of his usage.

“It's great to see all the guys,” said Gibson, who had lost out on an Opening Day job to lefty Andrew Nardi. “My job is to help the team win. If I do my job a little better tonight, I think we win the ballgame.”

Down by as many as five runs in the eighth, the Marlins mounted a rally, ending with the tying run on second in the ninth inning.

The Marlins, who have had their catchers and pitchers win more ABS challenges than any other team, didn’t have any remaining in the final frame due to catcher Liam Hicks going 1-for-3. The usually-composed Kyle Stowers got ejected for arguing a called strike three for the second out -- and McCullough was tossed as well -- before Otto Lopez produced an RBI single, pulling Miami within one.

After Xavier Edwards got ahead 2-0 in the count, two consecutive pitches that appeared to be outside of the zone were called strikes. There was nothing a frustrated Edwards could do. Following a wild pitch, he lined out to center on a full count.

“I think [I was] just a little frustrated with how the game went from my end,” Stowers said. “Like I said, big moment of the game, and [I] wanted to do something to help the team win. So I was just frustrated. In the moment, I thought it was a ball, and apparently it was a strike. So I was wrong.”