MIAMI — For six innings, rookie right-handed pitcher Zach Thompson took the mound at loanDepot park and put together another strong start for the Miami Marlins.
All he did was strike out 11 batters and hold the Washington Nationals to a pair of earned runs in a 3-2 Marlins win on Saturday, Miami’s second consecutive win following a four-game losing streak. The Marlins are now 33-43 on the season, while the Nationals drop to 36-38.
The 11 strikeouts are a new career high for Thompson. His previous best was seven set in his last start against the Chicago Cubs on Sunday. It’s also the most in a single game by a Marlins pitcher this season, eclipsing the 10 strikeouts from Trevor Rogers on April 10 against the New York Mets and Sandy Alcantara on April 6 against the St. Louis Cardinals.
“It’s really fun to do,” Thompson said. “I’m just glad I was able to put my team in a winning situation and hold them down.”
The 11 strikeouts are also the most by a Marlins pitcher since Caleb Smith also struck out 11 on May 7, 2019, against the Cubs at Wrigley Field.
It’s the most by a Marlins pitcher at home since Jose Fernandez struck out 12 on Sept. 20, 2016, against the Nationals.
Thompson struck out Nationals sluggers Kyle Schwarber and Juan Soto two times apiece.
Not bad for a 27-year-old making the fourth start of his big league career.
Seven of Thompson’s strikeouts came on his curveball — a pitch he had thrown just 20.1% of the time in his first three starts but also had a 54.5% swing-and-miss rate in that span.
“It’s really important for me,” Thompson said of the curveball. “Being able to get that over not only allows me to kind of throw north and south, but then having a cutter on top of that, they have to think about east and west, a little bit, too.”
Through four starts, Thompson has a 2.00 ERA with 25 strikeouts against six walks over 18 innings of work.
He held the Nationals to just two runs during his time on the mound, RBI doubles to left-center field from Soto in the first and Castro in the fourth. Jesus Sanchez overran his route on the Soto flyball. Sanchez and Starling Marte also nearly collided trying to corral the Castro ball in the fourth.
“Just a tremendous job,” manager Don Mattingly said.
And one Mattingly thought could potentially happen. The manager came away impressed by Thompson’s work during spring training back in March, although Mattingly was quick to acknowledge that “you never know where that goes.”
For Thompson, it has become an opportunity to shore up the back-end of a Marlins rotation that has had three consistent starters in Alcantara, Rogers and Pablo Lopez and two spots that haven’t been locked down.
A former fifth-round pick by the Toronto Blue Jays in 2014, Thompson was originally a starter by nature before being moved to the bullpen midway through the 2017 season. The Marlins signed him as a minor-league free agent in November and kept him in a reliever role the first month of the minor-league season at Triple A Jacksonville.
The organization had just started to build up Thompson’s innings when he got the callup to make his MLB debut on June 7. He threw three innings and 55 pitches that day against the Boston Red Sox. Three weeks later, he made it through six innings in a big league game and threw 91 pitches (57 strikes).
“Hopefully,” Thompson said, “six innings can kind of be normal and I can keep moving forward from there as long as we’re in a winning situation.”
Jon Berti gave the Marlins the lead for good with a solo home run in the fifth. Miami scored its first two runs of the game in the first. A Marte groundout to the right side scored Jazz Chisholm Jr., who led off the inning with a triple. A Miguel Rojas two-out RBI single scored Jesus Aguilar, who doubled two batters earlier.
Anthony Bender, Dylan Floro and Yimi Garcia threw three scoreless innings out of the bullpen to close the game, with Garcia earning his 12th save of the season in the process.
But the path to the win began with Thompson and the latest quality outing of his MLB career.
———
Despite going 3 for 4 with two doubles, a home run and walk and four runs scored on Friday, Garrett Cooper was not in the Marlins’ starting lineup on Saturday.
That was by design, Mattingly said. With Cooper returning from a lumbar strain that sidelined him for 15 games, Mattingly was going to have Cooper on the bench Saturday regardless of the results to ease him back in and minimize the chances of re-aggravating the injury.
Aguilar started at first base on Saturday after getting Friday off.
“Usually after a rehab, we always try to plan like if they play a couple of days, making sure they get a breather before they start. We really felt like Agui needed the day [Friday], so we went ahead and went with Coop knowing we’d have to give him [Saturday off] even though he obviously had a big night. We think that’s the best thing for his body. It was his first time he played nine innings so we’ll get recovery from that.”
Long-term, though, Mattingly said the plan with Cooper will be similar to what was being done at the start of the season. Cooper will split reps between first base and right field, spelling Aguilar at first and helping give off days to corner outfielders Adam Duvall and Sanchez.
“It’ll be a little bit of a juggling act,” Mattingly said.
