LOS ANGELES -- The Marlins’ 5-4 walk-off defeat against the Dodgers on Monday night hurts. It might sting a little bit more if Miami loses closer Pete Fairbanks for a period of time.
Fairbanks experienced numbness in his right hand and exited with the bases loaded before the Dodgers walked it off two batters later at Dodger Stadium.
“Just a lot of diminished sensation,” Fairbanks told MLB.com. “Felt like any movement of the wrist would exacerbate just loss of sensation in the index finger. So we'll see where it goes and how to work on it, but it was pretty frustrating, results aside, just to feel like things are going wrong and you don't know what it is.
“And obviously I've dealt with the nerve stuff before, and it is still just as frustrating, because it's such a complex chain from neck to fingertip with a lot of entrapment spots. So just trying to figure out what exactly is going on and work on it.”
With the Marlins on the cusp of snapping an eight-game skid at Dodger Stadium, Fairbanks took over in the ninth aiming to protect a two-run lead and secure his sixth save of the season.
Instead, Fairbanks walked consecutive batters to open the inning. Entering the series opener, Fairbanks had walked just one of the 36 batters he had faced this season. He threw only nine strikes in his 23-pitch outing.
“If the spray chart was any indication of what it was doing to me, I feel like that was a pretty fair assessment,” Fairbanks said. “I don't know how to describe it. It's like if your thumb were asleep and then you were trying to move it as fast as you can and make a ball move. It's not a great spot to be.”
Miguel Rojas popped out on a sacrifice bunt attempt to give Fairbanks a crucial first out before Shohei Ohtani followed with an RBI double. When Fairbanks fell behind Freddie Freeman, he issued an intentional walk to load the bases.
It was then that manager Clayton McCullough, pitching coach Daniel Moskos and a member of the training staff visited Fairbanks, who was seen shaking his hand. He wouldn’t toss a warmup pitch before exiting.
Fairbanks noted the diminished sensation was most prevalent when he almost threw a fastball off the backstop in the Freeman plate appearance, and then quickly got worse.
Right-hander Tyler Phillips took over for Fairbanks and struck out Will Smith. With the save within reach, Phillips threw two consecutive splitters to the left-handed-hitting Kyle Tucker, who fouled off the first one. He didn’t miss on the second, delivering the game-winning two-run single.
A nerve-related issue first surfaced for Fairbanks in April 2024, when he wound up on the injured list. He returned a little under three weeks later by maintaining better soft tissue quality.
“Not great,” Fairbanks said of how he felt postgame Monday. “It definitely doesn't feel like a normal right arm. Can only do so much with it. So it's a matter of, like I said, finding the spots in which you're really getting stuck and the nerve lines, and then doing our best to free that up and trying to gain some sensation.
“I've dealt with it before. It's something you deal with constantly. I think in all throwers, there's definitely an element of it. Some of us are more unlucky than others, but we'll see what tomorrow brings when you wake up and try to sleep on the left side.”
Should Fairbanks miss time, the Marlins can go closer-by-committee like they did in 2025. That’s what the Marlins wanted to avoid by signing the proven veteran Fairbanks to a franchise-record $13 million deal for a reliever.
It was encouraging to see high-leverage relievers Andrew Nardi and Calvin Faucher bounce back with a combined 1 2/3 scoreless innings on Monday after collectively giving up five runs in Sunday’s loss.
“Definitely adrenaline hitting, definitely angry, especially from last outing,” Nardi said. “I felt like I had something to prove, needed to show out.”
Phillips and righty Anthony Bender recorded four saves apiece in 2025 and can also fill in if needed. Miami could even promote lefty Cade Gibson or right-handed prospects William Kempner or Josh White for their first MLB callups.
“Those guys have to have a short memory, and I think sometimes you expect the bullpen to be perfect every time,” McCullough said of Nardi and Faucher. “That's just not the case. Individuals, the group, goes through stretches. They're talented, and so if they're available, and there’s a chance to get them back into big spots, I'm going to continue to do that, because I believe in their ability. [For] both those guys to come back today and put up zeros was big.”