The memory is still fresh in Jesus Luzardo’s memory.
October 2003. He had just celebrated his sixth birthday a month earlier. Now, he was celebrating his hometown baseball team, the Florida Marlins, as they defeated the New York Yankees to claim the second World Series title in franchise history.
Fast forward 18 years. Luzardo is 23 going on 24. He’s not cheering for the Marlins anymore. He’s playing for them, a full-circle moment in his baseball career made possible when the Oakland Athletics traded Luzardo to Miami for Starling Marte on July 28.
Luzardo takes immense pride in his South Florida roots. He has “954” stitched in gold on the outside his black glove, a homage to Broward County’s area code.
When Luzardo looks back at those days as a fan growing up, he never thought this moment would be a reality.
Now that it’s here, he plans to make the most of it.
“I didn’t have that in my mind at the time,” said Luzardo, who was born in Peru to Venezuelan parents but has lived in South Florida since he was 1 and graduated from Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland. “I was just kind of taking it all in. I knew I loved baseball, but I didn’t think I’d ever get to play to the Marlins, so as I came up throughout my career, the short time that I’ve been up, I’ve been saying that I would like to play for the Marlins at one time. I was lucky enough to be traded here and be able to play for my hometown team.”
Luzardo will get plenty of opportunities this season to prove he can be a regular in the starting rotation long-term. The left-handed pitcher has already made two starts since the trade and will make his third on Friday when the Marlins begin a three-game series with the Chicago Cubs at loanDepot park.
The final results of those first two outings were shaky — three earned runs on four hits and three walks with five strikeouts in five innings against the New York Mets on Aug. 2 and seven earned runs allowed on seven hits and four walks with two strikeouts in 4 2/3 innings against the Colorado Rockies on Saturday.
Luzardo admitted he had trouble keeping his emotions in check during first start with the Marlins, one that came with at least 100 family members and friends at loanDepot park.
“A lot of adrenaline,” Luzardo said. “A lot of like jitters. First time having a lot of family watch me in person ... but I was glad to get my feet wet now I can get that all out from underneath.”
As for his second start? He let rallies manifest. The Rockies scored three runs in both the fourth and fifth innings. There were a few unlucky hits — like Charlie Blackmon’s broken-bat infield single in the fourth and a Connor Joe single through the right side that slipped under Jesus Aguilar’s glove and into right field later in the inning — but Luzardo was quick to say he’s not making excuses.
“I’m tough on myself,” Luzardo said. “I have high expectations for myself. I can’t let, whether it’s a bloop hit or whatever it is get to me and let it spiral out of control. I need to be able to stop the bleeding right away.”
At the end of the day, results are secondary at this point when it comes to Luzardo.
The 23-year-old has pitched all of 118 2/3 career innings in his MLB career and has had just two weeks with this coaching staff. Development is the main focus at this point. The Marlins want to give Luzardo as many starts as possible so they can get an up-close look at where he is and what they can do to help him improve.
“Getting to know him, he seems like he’s a guy that puts a lot of pressure on himself and he’s a perfectionist, which I like,” Marlins pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre Jr. said. “Really good stuff. He’s gonna fit in nicely with this rotation moving forward, but it’s gonna take time. You look at the transformation and how guys like Sandy [Alcantara] and [Pablo] Lopez evolved. It took a few years. He’s athletic and things can come quick, but there’s great stuff to work with.”
Luzardo, a third-round pick by the Washington Nationals who made his MLB debut in 2019, utilizes a four-pitch mix.
His best pitch this season has been his mid-80s curveball, which has resulted in 24 of his 47 strikeouts and has a 54.5 swing-and-miss rate — the second-highest in MLB this year among pitchers who have thrown at least 150 curveballs, behind only Tyler Glasnow (55.6 percent).
He uses two fastballs that both average about 95 mph, but the results have been lackluster this year. Opponents are hitting .370 against the four-seam fastball, with seven of 20 hits given up on the pitch ending up as home runs. His sinker is being hit at a .333 rate, 17 hits in 51 at-bats that end with that pitch.
“I feel like throwing hard, for the most part, teams just hunt that pitch and I feel like that’s where most of the damage comes from,” said Luzardo, who noted Johan Santana, Dontrelle Willis and Felix Hernandez as pitchers he tried to emulate growing up. “I definitely have to locate it better, but I feel like that’s the pitch that teams are always gonna hunt off me so that’s why secondary stuff is eventually gonna put guys away.”
