The new-look Miami Marlins continue to hover in the middle of the pack in the ultra-competitive National League East, and they are doing so without the services of starting pitcher Trevor Rogers.
Last week, Rogers left Miami’s 5-2 loss to the San Francisco Giants at loanDepot Park after just three innings of work. After back-to-back hits by San Francisco, including an RBI double by Giants designated hitter Darin Ruf, the left-hander was tended to on the mound by the team’s medical training staff. Two days later, he was placed on the 15-day injured list with a left biceps strain.
“That inning, we looked at his warmup pitches and he just didn’t look right,” Marlins manager Skip Schumaker said after the loss, adding that he consulted with pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre Jr. “[Mel thought] he was disconnected in his mechanics.”
After the game, the team announced the injury as “left forearm tightness,” but an MRI the next day revealed the strain.
“I’m just not trying to push anybody to keep going when there’s forearm tightness,” Schumaker said. “I didn’t feel comfortable just trying to have him battle through it.”
Rogers is 1-2 with a 4.00 ERA in four starts this season. He has allowed eight earned runs and 16 hits with 19 strikeouts in 18 innings. He was replaced on the pitching staff by left-hander Steven Okert, who was reinstated from the injured list after battling left adductor tightness.
Initially, Rogers felt discomfort in bullpen sessions in-between starts but received treatment on the forearm. However, the discomfort grew throughout his pregame routine before taking the mound versus the Giants.
“As I progressed more into the game, it was a lot of forearm/bicep tightness,” Rogers after that loss. “I could’ve kept pitching. But at the point, we are in the season, I just don’t think it’d be a smart idea to try and test it.”
Rogers entered this season as the No. 3 starter in the Marlins rotation. And in his previous start before the injury, against the Arizona Diamondbacks, he had his best outing of the early season, limiting the Diamondbacks to just one run over six innings of work with seven strikeouts.
The veteran Rogers, 25, also sported a top-five chase rate in Major League Baseball at the time of the injury. He entered that week at 38.7%, a marked improvement from 28.6% in 2022. Chase rate is an advanced metric that MLB uses to measure the proportion of pitches out of the zone a batter swings at.
A runner-up in the 2021 National League Rookie of the Year race, Rogers is looking to bounce back after a subpar year last season. He posted a 5.47 ERA in 23 starts in 2022. And in addition to the sophomore struggles, Rogers also missed a month with back spasms before his season ended in early September with a lat strain.
“It’s always frustrating when I can’t go out there and compete and stay healthy,” Rogers said. “Really just start trying to figure it out and move on, hopefully sooner rather than later.”
The Marlins have persevered without him. A 5-4 win over the Atlanta Braves last Thursday pulled them up to the .500 mark at 13-13, and a weekend sweep of the Chicago Cubs pushed them into a tie for second place in the NL East with the New York Mets.
Rogers was scheduled to resume throwing activities on his road back to the mound this week, but that has since been delayed.
“I’d rather this be now than later in the season,” Rogers said.
