Miami Marlins dealing with ‘fine line’ with starting pitching during playoff push

Jesus Luzardo understands the situation the Miami Marlins are in as a whole. They’re in the playoff hunt, pushing over the final three weeks of the season to try to claim one of the National League’s three wild card spots. The 25-year-old left-handed pitcher has been part of a playoff push twice before, with the Oakland Athletics in 2019 and 2020, so he knows how each game gets magnified as September progresses.

Luzardo also understands the situation the Marlins are in with their rotation. Starting pitching was supposed to be the team’s strength this season, with a surplus of talented pitchers set to anchor first-year manager Skip Schumaker’s roster. That depth has since thinned. Left-handed pitcher Trevor Rogers has been out virtually all season. Johnny Cueto missed the first half and has struggled since his return. And now ace Sandy Alcantara is sidelined with a right forearm flexor strain.

Luzardo, who has already thrown 60 more innings than he ever has before in a season, all of a sudden has become an anchor of the rotation in the most trying time of the year.

“It’s not pressure,” Luzardo said. “If anything, I love these moments.”

That’s why Monday was a frustrating night for him. The Marlins need big performances from him down the stretch. He knows that.

And he couldn’t deliver in the Marlins’ 12-0 shutout loss to the Milwaukee Brewers.

It started with a leadoff home run to Mark Canha and ended with six runs allowed on a season-high 10 hits and a season-high-tying four walks over just five innings. Daniel Castano and catcher Jacob Stallings pitched the final three innings to avoid using key relievers in a blowout.

“It’s just inexcusable,” Luzardo said of his performance.

It’s also the latest example of the precarious situation the Marlins are in as they close out the season.

The immediate focus is to win as many games as they can over this final stretch of the regular season and get to the postseason. That mind set hasn’t changed.

And, for their part, they have been doing that. Miami has won eight of its past 11 games and is one-and-a-half games back of the Arizona Diamondbacks for the National League’s third and final wild card spot entering Tuesday.

But the Marlins’ pitching set-up is forcing Schumaker to pull a few tricks in an attempt to make their goal a reality.

Three of the team’s primary starting pitchers — Luzardo (160 1/3 innings), Braxton Garrett (143 2/3 innings) and Eury Perez (120 1/3 innings between MLB and minor leagues) — have already far exceeded their single-season career-highs for innings pitched. A fourth, Edward Cabrera (109 1/3 innings between MLB and minor leagues, one shy of career high), is set to top his with his next outing.

“It’s definitely challenging,” said Schumaker, whose Marlins are halfway through a stretch of 16 games in 16 days without a day off. “Making sure they’re healthy going into the offseason obviously is important to me and our staff, not only for our team but for their career. There’s a fine line where you push and where you pull back. We’re all trying to figure this out together.”

That fine line has resulted in two key developments.

The first: Even with the impacted depth and the need for bullpen days to round out the rotation, the team is still going forward with a six-man rotation. It’s a move made to preserve innings for those younger starters even if it means altering players’ routines.

The second: Tougher decisions are being made when determining how aggressive to be when falling behind by a considerable margin early.

Take Miami’s 8-4 loss to the Phillies on Saturday. Cueto started that day with Miami scheduled to have a bullpen day on Sunday. Cueto struggled in the second inning, giving up five runs and needing 50 pitches to record three outs.

Schumaker said he considered taking Cueto out during the second inning but didn’t.

“We were trying to figure out how to cover innings,” Schumaker said. “It’s just the spot we’re in. ... Do I want anybody to go over 40 pitches [in an inning]? No. It’s hard to do that, but he felt like he could do it.”

Cueto ultimately went 3 2/3 innings before Schumaker went to the bullpen for long reliever Enmanuel De Jesus, who got a groundout to finish the fourth and keep the deficit at 5-0. Miami then scored four runs in the top of the fifth to cut the deficit to one run.

Schumaker could have opted to go to high leverage relievers at that point. Instead, De Jesus came back out for the bottom of the fifth and gave up three runs to increase Philadelphia’s lead to four runs. De Jesus pitched the rest of the game to preserve the rest of the bullpen for the series finale Sunday, a game Miami ultimately won 5-4 to take the series.

Monday was similar to Saturday. With nothing going right for Luzardo or the offense (Miami was held to six hits, all singles, as Milwaukee’s Brandon Woodruff pitched a shutout) and another bullpen game scheduled for Tuesday, Schumaker went into preservation mode, prioritizing a chance to win tomorrow over a game that already felt lost early Monday.

It’s a calculated move, but with Miami playing from behind for postseason positioning, they can only afford so many losses down the stretch.

“We’ve played really well the last 10 days or so,” Schumaker said. “Hopefully we can flush this one.”