NEW YORK -- The Marlins made a pitching change before the start of Sunday’s game against the Yankees. Miami decided to have a bullpen game, starting with right-hander Pete Fairbanks.
Miami’s original plan was to start right-hander Chris Paddack for the 1:35 p.m. ET game at Yankee Stadium. But with the game starting late because of inclement weather, the team decided to put Fairbanks on the mound because he needed to leave Yankee Stadium as soon as possible to return to Florida and be with his wife, Lydia, who is scheduled to give birth to their fourth child Monday.
After a delay of three hours and 35 minutes, the Marlins spotted Fairbanks to a 1-0 lead before he yielded a three-run homer to Ben Rice. Andrew Nardi pitched a perfect second before Paddack entered the game in the third inning of Miami's 7-6 win.
Fairbanks, who last pitched Tuesday, hadn't allowed a run this season before Sunday. He is expected to be placed on the paternity list after the game.
“With the rain delay, I wanted [Fairbanks] to get back with the birth of his child,” Marlins manager Clayton McCullough said.
“If this was a normal start time, we would run things normally. We would have Chris start. With this [game] getting pushed back to potentially when it is going to happen, we want to get an inning or so out of Pete either way. He is going to be out of the mix for a few days, so we felt it was best to grab that early on.”
The Marlins placed Fairbanks on the paternity list ahead of Monday's series opener against the Reds at loanDepot park and recalled Ryan Gusto from Triple-A Jacksonville as the corresponding roster move.
"Ryan comes here and he's stretched out as a starter, so he can provide us certainly some length if needed," McCullough said. "He's built out, he's gone five ups. So if we need that type of length here potentially over the next few days, Ryan is ready for that. Ryan had a good camp, so mostly right now, with what was asked of a lot of individuals over the weekend, having Ryan be able to come up here and provide us some really quality length will be very beneficial."
Christina De Nicola contributed to this story.