German Marquez was trending in the right direction when he made the National League All-Star team last season. It was further proof the Colorado Rockies were smart to sign him to an extension in 2019.
Things haven’t gone well in the first couple of months of 2022 for the right-hander, however. Marquez is 1-5 with a 6.30 ERA and is struggling to find a solution to his problems, but he’ll get a chance to turn things around when he takes the mound against the Miami Marlins on Tuesday night.
Miami has not named a starter for the second game of the three-game series in Denver. Colorado won the opener on Monday, 7-1.
Marquez pitched well in his first start of the season against the Los Angeles Dodgers but has a 7.12 ERA since then. He is coming off a 7-3 loss at the Washington Nationals on Thursday in a game in which he gave up four runs in the first inning but just one more run over the next five.
“I know it’s frustrating for, most notably, German, because of his pride and his confidence and his desire to be at the very top of our rotation,” Colorado manager Bud Black said. “It’s been a struggle for sure. The coaches are searching for everything we can to help him through this. He’s going to come out and compete; I know that he’s going to get after it. But, more than that, you’ve got to make pitches. For German, he’s got to get the ball down.”
The Marlins could be a good starting point for him. He is 3-3 with a 4.11 ERA in six career starts against them and has a 1.59 ERA in the past three starts, all wins.
The Marlins are starting to get back to whole after the return of players who have been ailing or on the injured list. In the past few days, Joey Wendle, Avisail Garcia and Jazz Chisholm Jr. have been back in the lineup.
“It’s about that time of the year that everybody starts to feel a little something somewhere,” Chisholm said. “This is always the shaky part of the year where the guys are really like getting a little bit banged up early. But we’re just going to come back strong as soon as everybody gets back and everybody’s feeling healthy again, just start getting that rhythm in the lineup.”
That rhythm went sideways when Wendle left Monday’s game with right-hamstring tightness. He led off the fourth with a single and went to second on a ground-ball error. After sliding safely into the bag, he walked off the field.
“That’s not good. Any time you see a guy walk off the field and he doesn’t call you out, that’s not a good spot,” Marlins manager Don Mattingly said. “It seems like the same leg. I don’t know the severity. But obviously it’s not good when you do the same thing you just got done coming off the rehab.”
Even with the injuries and lineup changes, Mattingly said his team just needs to play better.
“We definitely haven’t played the kind of baseball that we’re capable of at this point,” he said.
–Field Level Media