Marlins drop to 0-3 for the first time since 2015

[Kevin Barral]

On Saturday, Jared Jones beat the Marlins in his MLB debut with the Pirates offense providing nine runs of support.

MIAMI, FL—Ryan Weathers made his first start of the season for the Miami Marlins, giving up three runs off of seven hits, two walks and five strikeouts, but the major league debut of Pirates right-hander Jared Jones stole the show on a Saturday afternoon in Miami.

Pittsburgh's number three prospect according to MLB Pipeline, Jones went 5 ⅔ innings, giving up three runs off of three hits, walking two and striking out ten Marlins batters. Jones wasted no time showing off the velo, hitting 99.9 mph on his fastball and making hitters work, generating 22 whiffs off of 48 swings. He recorded five of his strikeouts on sliders.

With his ten-strikeout performance, Jones became the first Pirates pitcher with double-digit strikeouts in his MLB debut since the late Tim Wakefield in 1992.

"Fastball was really playing at the top of the zone and we weren't picking up his slider," said Marlins manager Skip Schumaker following the game. "A lot of swing-and-miss with the slider and hitters counts. He did really good. It's been a really nice debut for him."

The Marlins were able to get to Jones in the bottom of the fourth inning. Jazz Chisholm Jr. worked a six-pitch walk, Jake Burger, who has gotten off to a great start this season, drove him in on an RBI double, his fifth RBI of the season. That made it a 3-1 game and broke the no-hitter Jones had going for himself. Following Burger, Jesús Sánchez recorded his second RBI of the season, driving in Burger to make it a one-run game.

The final run the Marlins would score was another Sánchez RBI single, but this time off a lefty. Entering that at-bat, Sánchez had slashed .201/.235/.324/.559 with five home runs and 13 RBIs in his career against lefties. Earlier in the series, he had been replaced by pinch-hitter Avisaíl García in a similar situation. He took advantage of the opportunity.

"Working on that during the offseason against a lot of lefties," said Sánchez through a translator. "I think it's more about repetition opportunities. Once I continue getting that opportunity, we're going to continue to see those results."

Schumaker added, "He's been working hard on all facets of the game and you're gonna have to give guys opportunities to see what they can do against some lefties. Given Jazz a shot at them, gave Sánchez a shot today, so you're gonna have to see what they can do. You don't know until you give them a shot and I know there's been history of some at-bats that weren't great maybe earlier in their career, but they're allowed to get better and they're allowed to mature and have better at-bats."

In his first start of the 2024 season, Ryan Weathers had his highs and lows. Going four innings, striking out five, but giving up four runs off of seven hits and two walks, the Pirates made the lefty work deep into counts, running up the pitch count to 94 pitches.

"First-pitch strike percentage was actually good," said Schumaker. "I thought his stuff was actually good. Velo was up. I actually thought overall, it was good. He just had long at-bats."

Weathers relied on his fastball/changeup combo with a taste of the sweeper, primarily as a putaway pitch. Two of his five strikeouts came on the sweeper with one on the fastball and two on the changeup. Pirates hitters were patient, making Weathers work deep counts, but were persistent as they had 13 whiffs off of 44 swings.

"It felt really good," said Weathers when asked about starting off 14 of 22 batters with first-pitch strikes. "Got ahead, gave up a couple 0-2 hits that kind of hurt. Threw some pitches in the spots that I wanted to throw them in. Credit to them... Just got to execute a little more."

Sixto Sánchez, who came in for Weathers, went two innings, giving up two runs (one earned) off of two hits, making it a 5-2 game. Andrew Nardi followed. The Pirates got to the Marlins reliever and tacked on four more runs—all of them scoring with two outs—leading to the final score of 9-3.

FOF Game Thread: 3/30/24

With the loss, the Miami Marlins drop to 0-3 for the first time since 2015, when they lost three straight to the Atlanta Braves. It is the fifth time in Marlins history that they have started 0-3, also including 1995, 2001 and 2013. They haven't started 0-4 since 2001. On Sunday, Trevor Rogers will take the mound against Bailey Falter at 1:40 p.m. to try to avoid that.

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[FishFan93]

Man, this hurts after what we did last season. After all the shifts this offseason and management changes I'm hoping this is just another bump in the road but my fear is we are just cutting costs again. I have hope for some of the draftees we got in the system...just hope we don't trade em for peanuts.

[Brock Beauchamp]

4 hours ago, FishFan93 said:

Man, this hurts after what we did last season. After all the shifts this offseason and management changes I'm hoping this is just another bump in the road but my fear is we are just cutting costs again. I have hope for some of the draftees we got in the system...just hope we don't trade em for peanuts.

Welcome to the site!

[Ely Sussman]

6 hours ago, FishFan93 said:

Man, this hurts after what we did last season. After all the shifts this offseason and management changes I'm hoping this is just another bump in the road but my fear is we are just cutting costs again. I have hope for some of the draftees we got in the system...just hope we don't trade em for peanuts.

It's been really ugly any way you look at it. I'll just point out that last season started ugly too (1-4 in their first 5 games, all of them at home).

[MRDHU75]

2 hours ago, Ely Sussman said:

It's been really ugly any way you look at it. I'll just point out that last season started ugly too (1-4 in their first 5 games, all of them at home).

Good point, Ely. It's still SUPER early but 2 things stand out that we kind of new:

1) Avi Garcia is useless....no matter where he plays he just doesn't have it for this lineup

2) Our starting pitchers who are hurt are much more valuable then we initially thought. Excited for Meyer and Rogers' starts, but getting BG, Perez and Cabrera back will make huge dividends.