MIAMI – The Marlins’ dugout held its collective breath when Yandy Díaz’s 110.2 mph comebacker struck right-hander Tyler Phillips on the right foot during the fifth inning of Friday night’s 6-0 loss to the Rays at loanDepot park.
Injuries are part of the game. Every club has to deal with them. But the shorthanded Marlins can ill-afford another blow to their pitching staff.
“I want to be competitive, understanding that I have a duty to try to save the bullpen a little bit,” Phillips told MLB.com. “[Manager] Clayton [McCullough] was telling me, ‘You don't have to be a hero, we'll figure it out.’ If I couldn't keep going, if it hit me in the ankle bone, my foot probably would have been in pieces, and you probably would have seen me army crawling off of the field.
“But the fact that I was walking, I was fine. Just got to find a way.”
Such is the state of the Marlins during the early part of June.
With off-days this past Thursday and upcoming Monday, Miami already manipulated its depleted rotation, which is missing Eury Pérez, Janson Junk and Robby Snelling. Instead of starting Phillips for the third straight turn on Friday, righty Ryan Gusto opened the Citrus Series opener and Phillips piggybacked in a bulk role.
It didn’t work in Miami’s favor, as Gusto allowed three two-out runs in the first that proved to be enough in a two-hitter. Since being recalled from Triple-A Jacksonville, he has given up three runs in each of his two outings – both of which have been two innings.
Like Phillips, who converted from a relief to starting role, Gusto is getting accustomed to different usage. Prior to the promotion, Gusto had made seven starts for the Jumbo Shrimp, most recently going six frames on 87 pitches on May 24. When injuries forced the Marlins’ hand on the three-city trip, Gusto went just two innings last Friday in the Minors to be available for the big league club in Washington.
“I'm just trying to focus on throwing the ball 60 feet when they tell me to and being done when they tell me to stop, and I think that we'll get some sort of consistency going here soon,” Gusto said. “For now, I'm just having to do any job I can, and going to do my best to keep the team in the game.”
When Gusto was done, Phillips took over in the third and immediately ran into trouble by walking the first two batters he faced. The Rays wouldn’t score in that frame, but they did scratch across a run in the fifth, sixth and seventh.
“It's been different every time, it feels like,” said Phillips, who went 4 2/3 innings on 82 pitches. “Still got to pitch. End of the day, my past two outings I haven't thrown enough strikes, and it's just never going to go your way. Pitching is a lot easier when you're throwing the ball in the zone. Like I said, it's a different role, you try to figure it out. I think, today, mental space was in a weird place after the off-day, body was a little sluggish. I have to do a better job of just taking care of my business on the day to day, and I'm still trying to manage that.”
Though the Marlins used four pitchers on Friday, nine of the 10 relievers are available for Saturday’s bullpen game to be started by righty Lake Bachar. Rookie William Kempner recorded four outs on 13 pitches and righty Tyler Zuber tossed a scoreless ninth on 16 pitches to eat up innings.
If Miami can get through Saturday, things bode well for the near future. Right-hander Sandy Alcantara is scheduled to start Sunday’s finale before Monday’s off-day, and then righty Max Meyer will start on Tuesday against the D-backs.
The Marlins will continue to remain flexible and creative on the pitching front. Gusto is being set up to take down a large portion of a game during the midweek series against Arizona.
“Even with the couple that he's had here that were the two innings, don't think it's going to take away from what he'd already built up in Triple-A from an ups and a pitch-count standpoint,” McCullough said. “So when he gets back up there in the Arizona series, he should be able to give us a healthy amount of pitches and ups.”