MIAMI — It’s not just that there haven’t been many blemishes for Trevor Rogers through 15 starts in his spectacular rookie season for the Miami Marlins: There haven’t been any.
Before the Marlins’ 3-1 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays on Wednesday, the star starting pitcher’s worst outing came last month, when he went five innings and gave up three runs in a loss to the Washington Nationals. On Wednesday, he did the same: five innings, three runs allowed and a loss because his offense couldn’t pick him up.
It was perhaps his worst start of the 2021 MLB season. He fell behind 2-0 in the first inning when he couldn’t navigate the gauntlet at the top of the Blue Jays’ lineup. He issued first-pitch balls to seven of the first 12 batters he faced. The 23-year-old starter, pitching on seven days’ rest, needed 20 pitches to get through the first inning, 19 to get through the second and failed to pitch into the sixth inning for the first time in nearly a month.
He left after five innings and 83 pitches, replaced by a pinch hitter in the bottom of the fifth with Miami (31-42) trailing 3-0 and in danger of a two-game sweep at the hands of Toronto. The Marlins finished the quick series with a team ERA of just 2.50 and lost twice because they combined to score just two runs across the two games.
After starting pitcher Sandy Alcantara gave up just one run in eight innings of a losing effort Tuesday, Miami slipped to 11 games below .500 for the first time this year, leaving another 6,164 at loanDepot park frustrated after a loss almost entirely absent of offense.
While he was far from his usual dominant self, Rogers still put the Marlins in position to manage a series split in Miami. He goaded the Blue Jays (37-35) into 15 swings and misses, and got 11 more called strikes. With his fastball command struggling, Rogers (7-4) adjusted and threw his four-seam fastball less than 50% of the time for the first time all season, while going to his slider a season-high 31% of the time. After he began the game with two adventurous innings, Rogers only threw three more first-pitch balls in his final three innings.
In the first inning, star shortstop Bo Bichette hit a one-out single and superstar corner infielder Vladimir Guerrero Jr. followed with a one-out walk. Toronto outfielder Teoscar Hernandez drove Bichette home with an RBI double, star outfielder George Springer sent Guerrero home with an RBI single and Rogers was saddled with a rare two-run deficit before he even got a second out.
In nine of his first 14 starts this season, Rogers had given up one run or none. The May loss to the Nationals was the only time he gave up more than two, until Wednesday, when Rogers gave up a leadoff double to star middle infielder Marcus Semien in the fifth, then an RBI single to Bichette to fall into an even rarer three-run deficit.
The Marlins, after managing only three hits Tuesday, had five Wednesday and even brought the tying run to the plate in the bottom of the ninth. They scored their only run, though, on a solo home run by Starling Marte in the bottom of the sixth, and only had four hits and a walk against Blue Jays starting pitcher Robbie Ray. Marte’s homer came off Ray (5-3) and then Toronto turned to its bullpen to skate through the final three innings, and hand Miami another loss at home.
