MILWAUKEE – It took just seven pitches – and two consecutive brushbacks – for it to become clear that Marlins All-Star right-hander Max Meyer was off in Saturday’s 8-6 defeat to the Brewers at American Family Field.
The 27-year-old Meyer, who has already surpassed his single-season career highs for innings and starts at the Major League level, was taking the mound after a career-long 10 days between starts. Miami had purposely used the All-Star break to give Meyer extra rest, skipping his last outing and making him unavailable to pitch in the Midsummer Classic.
But Meyer allowed two runs in a season-low three innings in his return to the mound, struggling to get into a rhythm or fill up the zone (three walks) in a season-low 74-pitch outing.
“I grinded through every single inning it felt like, put the 'pen in a tough spot, especially coming off a break like this,” Meyer said. “Obviously, I wanted to go deeper. ‘Pen's got to pick up a lot of slack if I'm only going three innings and there's a one-run game. So, it was tough. Obviously, not my best one. Clean up the walks and then get back on it.”
Pregame, Marlins manager Clayton McCullough reiterated that Meyer is not a unique situation, as several young pitchers around the Majors like Brewers righty Jacob Misiorowski and the Blue Jays’ Trey Yesavage have seen their workloads monitored in order to maintain health and finish the regular season strong.
Until Saturday, Meyer had never gone longer than six days without taking the mound in a big league game. He had posted a 4.91 ERA in eight starts on six days’ of rest compared to 3.04 on regular four days’ rest and 4.61 with five.
“We are in uncharted territory with this, but also, we don't have any concern as much as, we do the responsible thing is just to be aware and cognizant of we do have a young athlete that is and already has surpassed a number of career highs,” McCullough said.
“... We feel good about where he's at right now, but I think we'll go start to start or succession of starts, and continue to gauge with how things are going.”
There were obvious signs of rust from the get-go, as Meyer walked leadoff batter Christian Yelich on five pitches, then missed badly on consecutive offerings to Jackson Chourio to elicit boos from the Brewers’ faithful. He managed to escape trouble in the opening frame, but he also labored over the next two frames.
Handed a 3-0 lead in the second, Meyer gave up one run in the bottom half of the inning. Garrett Mitchell led off with a single and Meyer walked Luis Lara – but not before requesting an ABS challenge on a ball clearly above the zone.
“Looking back at it, I'm not going to challenge,” Meyer said. “I should never challenge. … I'm never going to do that again.”
Following a flyout that advanced the lead runner, Braden Shewmake produced a sacrifice fly. After a fielding error by shortstop Otto Lopez, pitching coach Daniel Moskos came to the mound for a visit. It worked, as Meyer struck out Yelich on three pitches to end the threat.
In the third, Meyer walked Chourio, who stole second and scored on William Contreras’ RBI double. Later on, Meyer didn’t cover first base in time for an infield hit, but he wiggled out of the jam with consecutive strikeouts.
“I like the way [Milwaukee] played,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said. “Down 3-0 to a pitcher that's 9-1 with a [2.58 ERA entering Saturday], that's tough going right there, you know what I mean? But we got his pitch count up and got him out of there, little by little. Stole a bunch of bases and put pressure on them. It wasn't pretty."
The metrics were fine for Meyer, whose velocity remained consistent across the three innings and fell in line with his season averages. His stuff moved as it should. His sinker and changeup were a bit off, in his words.
As Meyer alluded to, his short start forced the bullpen to cover 18 outs. Cade Gibson and Tyler Zuber took care of business. but Calvin Faucher surrendered four runs in the sixth to turn a 3-2 lead into a 6-3 deficit.
The Marlins, who have dropped a season-high-tying five in a row, will depend upon Meyer, Sandy Alcantara and Eury Pérez to stay in contention … while being judicious with both Meyer and Pérez’s workloads because of their injury histories.
“We all want to go out there, go six, seven innings every single time,” Meyer said. “I think we can do that moving forward. There's a lot of highs and lows in the season, so nobody's panicking in there. We're facing a good team. I think we're just going to keep our head down and keep going.”