German Márquez was cool and dependable on an oddly hairy day for the Rockies.
Somehow, a Tony Wolters drive off the right-field wall with the bases loaded went for just a single and one run. Unbelievably, seven-time Gold Glove Award winner Nolan Arenado forgot the number of outs in the fourth inning and nearly cost the team a key run. But because Márquez was more than fine, Colorado took its fourth victory of a five-game season-opening road trip thanks to a 5-1 win over the Athletics on Wednesday afternoon at the Oakland Coliseum.
Márquez struck out eight -- needing only three pitches for half of those punchouts -- in his six innings, and he held the Athletics to one run on four hits. Even the run against him took some doing. Matt Chapman went a hefty distance above the strike zone to pop a full-count fastball over the left-field wall after Márquez had dispatched the first two batters on six pitches.
The performance followed up Márquez’s strong 5 2/3 innings -- including 5 1/3 hitless frames -- in a 1-0 loss at Texas on Opening Day. These starts are what Márquez was referring to before the season began, when he outlined his dreams of All-Star Games and Cy Young Awards. But he knows he has to earn all that over time.
“I have to keep going, doing my best and doing everything for the team,” Márquez said. “I don’t know if I’m close, but I feel good, and that is a good thing.”
His work has helped the Rockies’ rotation post a 2.30 ERA in 27 1/3 innings, and Colorado needed Márquez's calmness because of some just plain strange plays on Wednesday. With the bases loaded in the second, Wolters’ bases-loaded single produced just one run because runners could not tell if the fly ball would be caught. And Arenado’s odd throw home, instead of to first base to easily end the fourth, nearly hampered the Rockies. But the out call could not be overturned via replay.
And Márquez made sure none of the weirdness was a problem.
“It means we have a good pitcher on the mound,” said Wolters, who has caught much of Márquez’s career success. “Márquez is a stud up there. He’s really loose. He’s very in the moment. He can read hitters. And he believes in his stuff.”
Márquez established himself as a top-of-the-rotation threat last season, when he struck out 175 in 174 innings before being shut down with right arm inflammation in August of a lost season. Tough as he was in 2019, he came back this year more diversified.
From his debut in 2016 through last season, 52 percent of Márquez's pitches facing an order the first time have been four-seam fastballs. Not a bad strategy for someone who can ring one up at 98 mph.
But that was never a permanent plan. As Wolters noted, “This is the big leagues. You can’t just keep throwing fastballs down and away. He has four really good pitches, and it’s fun to mix with them.”
First time through in Texas, he threw the four-seamer 38 percent of the time. On Wednesday, it was 13 four-seamers in 36 pitches to the first nine hitters, or 36 percent.
Through the years together, the advance scouts, baseball operations department and coaching staff “have a process we go through” for pitch strategies, manager Bud Black said, like the ones that worked well against Texas and Oakland.
“And they do their own work, as well, so it’s collectively an inclusive situation of trying to get the right game plan," the manager added, "and today was executed pretty well."
Márquez’s first two starts have been an exercise in alternately overpowering and outwitting hitters. While four of his putaway pitches on Wednesday were sliders and the others were three sinkers and a curve, he felt the four-seamer was inadvertently responsible for it all. It was so good, and so treacherous, he didn’t have to throw it as much.
“I’ve been mixing pretty good, but that comes from my fastball command,” Márquez said. “If my fastball command is there, my other pitches are going to be there, too.”