Josh White closes out wild month of Marlins MLB debuts

[Ely Sussman]

NEW YORK — There's no shame in losing a battle to Juan Soto in your major league debut. The disturbing part for Josh White and the Miami Marlins is what brought Soto to the plate in the first place.

After nearly a full calendar year of terrorizing Triple-A hitters, White was recalled by the Marlins prior to Sunday's game. The corresponding roster move was placing Janson Junk on the 15-day injured list with right shin bone inflammation. The news of White's call-up was first reported by marlins.city on Instagram.

Fish On First's 21st-ranked prospect entered in the bottom of the sixth inning and looked comfortable initially. White struck out fellow rookie A.J. Ewing with a backdoor slider, then jammed Brett Baty with an inside fastball for a routine flyout.

However, poor control fueled an epic two-out rally from there:

• Walk
• Hit by pitch
• Walk
• Walk
• Home run (grand slam)
• Walk

A New York Mets team that had only been averaging 3.95 runs per game put up a five-spot against White in two-thirds of an inning.

The Ewing slider was an anomaly, as you can see below. White had difficulty landing any of his secondary pitches in the strike zone. Just 20 of his 43 total pitches were strikes.

During the month of May alone, White is the sixth different Marlin to make his MLB debut. He joins Josh Ekness (May 3), Joe Mack (May 4), William Kempner (May 5), Dax Fulton (May 6) and Robby Snelling (May 8), the first three of whom are still on the Marlins active roster...for now.

There are only two conventional starters on Miami's pitching staff right now (Sandy Alcantara and Max Meyer), plus Tyler Phillips, who's still in the process of getting fully stretched out for that role. All signs point to Ryan Gusto being recalled from Triple-A prior to Tuesday's game to audition for one of the rotation vacancies. The likeliest corresponding move would be optioning a rookie reliever.

One nightmarish performance does not dampen White's long-term outlook. The 25-year-old's steep arm angle and nasty breaking balls make him difficult for most mortals to barrel up, and his minor league track record speaks for itself (1.71 ERA and 2.51 FIP in 94.2 IP since 2025). But obviously, this was a discouraging first showing at the big league level.

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[Shawn]

So at this point the question is when the fire sale start.