NEW YORK — The Miami Marlins entered Saturday’s game against the New York Mets needing a spark.
Two rookies provided just that.
Starting pitcher Trevor Rogers went toe-to-toe with two-time Cy Young Award winner Jacob deGrom and second baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. hit a a solo home run off deGrom to give the Marlins an early lead in their 3-0 win at Citi Field, the Marlins’ first shutout victory of the year. Miami is now 2-6 on the season. The Mets are 2-3.
Rogers, the Marlins’ No. 7 overall prospect according to MLB Pipeline, tied career highs of six innings pitched and 10 strikeouts while facing a potent Mets lineup. He struck out Michael Conforto three times (all swinging). He struck out Pete Alonso and Jonathan Villar twice each (once looking and once swinging each). He struck out Brandon Nimmo (looking), Francisco Lindor (swinging) and Dominic Smith (swinging) once each.
Rogers, a 6-5 lefty, threw 82 pitches (56 of which were strikes) and worked out of two jams with runners in scoring position with no outs.
In the first, Nimmo led off with a double and Lindor reached on a sacrifice bunt attempt when catcher Chad Wallach couldn’t field the ball. The inning ended with Lindor getting caught stealing second before Conforto and Alonso struck out on consecutive at-bats.
In the sixth, deGrom led off with an infield single and Nimmo worked a four-pitch walk to put runners on first and second. Rogers eliminated the threat by getting Lindor to fly out to center and, once again, striking out Conforto and Alonso.
DeGrom was still impressive, too. He held the Marlins to five hits, did not walk a batter and struck out 14 over eight innings while averaging 99 mph with his four-seam fastball.
But Chisholm’s solo home run in the second inning gave the Marlins all the run support they needed against one of baseball’s best pitchers. He turned on an 0-2 fastball from deGrom and sent it 402 feet into the right-field seats.
Chisholm, the No. 63 overall prospect in MLB and No. 4 in the Marlins’ system, is the first player to ever hit a home run off deGrom on an 0-2 count. He’s also the 11th rookie to hit a home run off deGrom and third Marlins rookie to accomplish the feat (also Isan Diaz in 2019 and Brian Anderson in 2018).
The Marlins added a pair of insurance runs in the ninth on RBI singles from Jesus Aguilar and Miguel Rojas.
Yimi Garcia converted the Marlins’ first save of the season with a scoreless ninth inning.
