Rogers works through struggles, offense shows signs of coming alive

JUPITER, FL—Marlins starting pitcher Trevor Rogers threw four innings against a Phillies lineup that included several regulars.

The top half of the Phillies lineup—Brandon Marsh, Whit Merrifield, Alec Bohm, Nick Castellanos, and Edmundo Sosa—went 3-for-9 with a walk and two strikeouts against Rogers. Overall, he allowed three runs on four hits, two walks, and four strikeouts.

Rogers, who said after his last outing against the New York Mets on March 11 that this is the best his body has recovered between starts in a while, averaged just 91.6 miles per hour on his fastball, down from 94.1 mph in his March 11 outing.

The 26-year-old lefty said after the game that velocity decrease was due to mechanics and that he “feels great” physically.

“I just had to work so hard every pitch to find that consistent release point,” Rogers said. “I think it took a little bit out of me, velo-wise.”

The positive from Rogers’ day was his secondary pitches, mostly his slider and changeup. None of his 34 sliders and changeups were hit into play, and he generated 11 whiffs on 17 swings with those pitches.

“Feeling really good with those, especially the slider,” Rogers said. “The good takeaway was, I was even kind of disconnected and still my slider was really good today. Still up to like 83, changeup was really good today…still got a lot of good swing-and-miss, lots of weak contact.”

The Marlins offense has come online this weekend. After putting up eight runs against the St. Louis Cardinals on Friday, Marlins starters put up three against Philadelphia pitching on Saturday. The starting nine went 8-for-23 with two walks and five strikeouts against Phillies pitchers Kolby Allard and Max Castillo.

"I feel like nobody really understands the depth of this lineup and I can't wait till we go out there and show them,” said Chisholm, before shouting out Nick Gordon, Jesús Sánchez, and Jake Burger as key pieces in the offense.

The next Marlins game will be at 1:05 pm Sunday against the New York Mets on Sunday.

Notes

-Chisholm had an RBI single. Four of Chisholm’s nine hits this spring have come against lefties, which he has historically struggled against.

-Marlins relievers George Soriano, Tanner Scott, Vladimir Gutierrez (two innings), and Elvis Alvarado all pitched scoreless innings.

-Jesús Sánchez had an RBI single off the right field wall and was thrown out trying to leg it into a double. He thought it was a home run and didn’t run out of the box immediately.

-Nick Fortes drove in a run on a groundout.