Starling Marte exits Marlins’ loss with injury. The details and options moving forward

He was their last hope on Sunday. Miami Marlins center fielder Starling Marte, who hit a go-ahead home run in Friday’s series opener against the San Francisco Giants and who manager Don Mattingly has praised as one of their most consistent players, stepped up to the plate in the bottom of the ninth with two outs and the Marlins down a run.

Two pitches into the plate appearance, he reached toward his left side. Mattingly wasn’t going to take any chances.

Marte, despite pleas otherwise, was coming out of the game.

“The one thing we didn’t want to do,” Mattingly said after the 1-0 loss, “is take another swing and do more damage. Obviously there’s something. Didn’t want him taking another swing at that point and then tear it or rip it or make it worse.”

Jorge Alfaro took over the plate appearance for Marte, grounding out to shortstop to end the game.

The Marlins on Monday announced Marte has a fractured left rib and will be re-evaluated after about a week. The Marlins close out their homestand with a two-game series against the Baltimore Orioles on Tuesday and Wednesday before starting a three-city, 10-game road trip on Thursday.

But Marte missing any time will force the Marlins to make a slew of adjustments both on defense and in the batting order. He’s the only player who has started all 15 games to this point of the season. He’s the only player to appear in center field. He’s batted second in all but one game this year.

And he’s been their steadiest player. Marte leads the Marlins with 18 hits and 15 runs scored and has safely reached base in each of the last 14 games. He’s also stellar defensively.

“He’s a big part of what we do,” Mattingly said. “He’s that cog in the offense, defense, on the bases. ... You don’t really replace that. We don’t have a replacement for that. At the end of the day, if it is whatever amount of time it is, somebody steps in and does what they do and everyone around him has to continue to go. That’s the reason to pull him out of the game. You don’t want to lose this guy for six weeks. It could be a couple weeks. It could be 10 days. It could be five days. We want it to be the minimum.”

Should the Marlins need a replacement, Magneuris Sierra is the primary outfielder on the active roster who had regular experience playing center field, with the trio of Corey Dickerson, Adam Duvall and Garrett Cooper playing the corners and Jon Berti serving a super-utility role.

The Marlins also have Lewis Brinson and Monte Harrison available at the alternate training site.

This is Marte’s second injury since being acquired by the Marlins from the Arizona Diamondbacks at the trade deadline last August. He was hit by a pitch in Game 2 of the best-of-3 wild card series against the Chicago Cubs and missed the National League Divisional Series matchup against the Atlanta Braves with a small non-displaced fracture in the fifth metacarpal of his left hand, which is the base of the bone between the pinkie and the wrist.

“With Marte, he’s a guy you can count on to come every single day to the ballpark and prepare for the game,” shortstop Miguel Rojas said. “That’s a guy who’s a veteran in all aspects. The guy can run, can hit, play defense. We’re going to keep our fingers crossed because we need Marte.”