MIAMI — Jesus Luzardo’s first inning as a starting pitcher at his hometown ballpark for his hometown team went about as well as he could have anticipated. The 23-year-old lefty, with “954” stitched in gold on his black glove, retired the first three New York Mets batters he faced on 17 pitches.
His second inning was rough, bloating his pitch count and cutting into the Miami Marlins’ early lead as command eluded him.
But Luzardo rebounded, and the Parkland Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School alumnus had enough support from his offense to leave loanDepot park with a 6-3 win on Monday to begin his Marlins career.
Luzardo’s final line in his Marlins debut: Three earned runs allowed on four hits and three walks over five innings pitched. Luzardo threw 84 pitches, 47 of which went for strikes.
The Marlins (45-61) understand Luzardo is not a finished product. He had thrown just 109 innings at the MLB level at the time Miami acquired him from the Oakland Athletics in exchange for outfielder Starling Marte. They also understand the short- and long-term benefits Luzardo brings to the club.
In the immediate, he provides a capable starting pitcher to round out a rotation that has been plagued by injuries all season. In the long-term, he could become a middle-of-the-rotation starter. Luzardo is under team control until 2026.
“We think Jesus has got a very long, strong career ahead of him and we’re just happy to have him,” Marlins general manager Kim Ng said Wednesday after the trade was completed. “We’ve obviously had our battle with injuries and there’s the old adage that you can never have enough pitching. I think for me personally, it was hard [to trade Marte], but I think in the end, knowing the return that we got for a guy like Starling, knowing that he was on an expiring contract, I personally as well as I think others in the organization, we’re really excited about the caliber of the player that we got in return.”
They got a glimpse Monday of where Luzardo stands.
He mixed in all of his pitches, throwing 39 sinkers, 24 changeups, 17 curveballs and four four-seam fastballs. Mets batters whiffed on 17 of their 40 swings — a 43-percent rate that’s well above Luzardo’s career average of 29.9 percent.
Luzardo retired the side in the first inning, getting Kevin Pillar and Jeff McNeil to ground out while striking out Pete Alonso swinging on an 86.7 mph changeup on the outside corner of the strike zone.
He fell into trouble in the second inning, walking Javier Baez on five pitches, giving up a hard-hit single to J.D. Davis and then throwing a wild pitch to give the Mets their first run of the game. Luzardo got two quick outs after that before Brandon Drury drove in another run with an RBI double. Luzardo needed 29 pitches in total to get the three outs in the inning.
He gave up a leadoff home run to Pete Alonso in the third but held the Mets (55-50) scoreless after that.
The offense backed him up as well. Outfielder Lewis Brinson, batting in the cleanup spot, hit a first-inning grand slam and recorded a career-high five RBI overall on Monday. Isan Diaz also hit an RBI double in the third that scored Brinson.
