Meyer has rough outing in major-league debut
Max Meyer walked off the mound Saturday to a standing ovation from the loanDepot park crowd, his MLB debut finished with one out in the sixth inning.
The Miami Marlins’ 2020 first-round pick, the No. 21 overall prospect in baseball according to MLB Pipeline, showed a lot of promise in his outing against the Philadelphia Phillies.
He also showed he’s far from a finished product.
Meyer’s final line in the Marlins’ 10-0 blowout loss to the Phillies that drops Miami to 43-47: Five earned runs allowed on seven hits and one walk with five strikeouts over
5 1⁄3 innings. He threw 79 pitches, 53 of which went for strikes.
“He’s like all young pitchers,” Marlins pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre Jr. said Friday. “He’s going to have to go through it and get to a point where he can figure out where his adjustments are. Every guy I’ve ever had has gone through that process. I love his stuff. I love the competitive nature. This guy wants the ball in big moments. … He’ll figure things out when he makes mistakes and gets himself in bad counts and bad parts of the zone. [Hitters are] going to let him know, and we’ll go back like we do with all young guys and take a look at that stuff and talk about where our adjustments are. I expect those adjustments to come quick.”
Meyer cruised early on Saturday. He threw his pregame warmup pitches to T.I.’s “What You Know.” His first pitch was a 94.7 mph fastball to Kyle Schwarber that landed for a called strike. He struck out his second batter, Rhys Hoskins, after a 10-pitch at-bat.
He allowed just two hits the first time against through the Phillies’ lineup and had struck out four of the first 10 batters overall.
And then, with two outs in the fourth inning, he went through his first rough patch as a big-leaguer.
A Darick Hall single on a fastball over the heart of the plate. A J.T. Realmuto two-run home run on a fastball over the heart of the plate. A Bryson Stott double on a low changeup.
Hoskins then added a solo home run on a slider low in the strike zone to lead off the sixth before issuing his first and only walk of the game to Nick Castellanos and a one-out double to Realmuto to end his time on the mound.
Both Castellanos and Realmuto scored when
Didi Gregorious hit a twoout single to center field off reliever Richard Bleier. The Phillies (48-43) then scored five more runs in the eighth against Cody Poteet. Miami’s offense, meanwhile, logged just five hits in its seventh shutout loss of the season.
“The fact is the pitches up here, the weight of those and the after-effects of recovering and having to go through the lineups that they have to go here, it’s not a forgiving league,”
Stottlemyre said. “We had to let that process kind of run its course down there, too. He’s going to have enough innings to be able to pitch in our rotation and to put himself and the ballclub in a position to try to win games. He’s here to help us win ballgames. We’re going to continue to develop him, and he’s going to learn all that part. But he’s earned it, too. He’s done enough there. He needs another challenge.”
His next challenge: Making the adjustments the next time he takes the mound after the All-Star
Break.
And the Marlins still remain optimistic about Meyer’s potential.
The 23-year-old has a career 2.77 ERA in 35 starts in the minor leagues over the past two seasons with 199 strikeouts over 172 innings. He was sidelined for about a month this season while dealing with right ulnar nerve irritation, but has posted a 1.96 ERA (four earned runs allowed in 18 1⁄3 innings) with 21 strikeouts against five walks in his four starts since returned to Jacksonville following the injury.
His fastball sits between 92 and 95 mph and his slider was arguably the single-best pitch out of all pitchers in the 2020 draft. He has been developing his changeup to give him a third pitch, which is needed to be a starter at the MLB level.
“Your dream is to get here,” Marlins manager Don Mattingly said, “and he’s reaching that. … But there are nerves of how is it going to go? Because you don’t quite know this level. No matter what you’ve been through or what you think you are, you’ve got to deal with this level. That’s always something different. That’s the unknown.”
CHISHOLM WON’T PLAY IN ALL-STAR GAME
Second baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr., still rehabbing a lower right back strain, will not play in the All-Star Game on Tuesday at Dodger Stadium.
Chisholm, who was named the National League’s starter at his position after winning the fan vote, has been on the injured list since June 29 and has been rehabbing at the Marlins’ spring training complex in Jupiter.
Chisholm still plans to go to Los Angeles and attend the other off-field All-Star events and activities.