Thumb healed, Peters to make major league debut
MIAMI — Among all of Dillon Peters’ birthdays, he said Thursday was the most memorable. A day before his major league debut — to come today in a start against the Philadelphia Phillies — the left-handed Peters joined the Miami Marlins for first time.
The thousands of fans who gathered at Marlins Park as the Marlins opened a four-game series with the Phillies made for a heck of a makeshift 25th birthday party.
“This is definitely at the top. That’s for sure,” Peters said. “I’m really happy to be here. I turned 25 today. Family is in town. So it’s going to be a good weekend for sure.”
Peters won’t officially be added to the Marlins’ 40-man and active rosters until today, when rosters expand to up to 40 players, but he’ll take the mound more than four months after he and the team thought his season might have been over.
In his third start of the year for Double-A Jacksonville, Peters suffered a fractured left thumb on a comebacker that came back faster than even reflexes could protect him. It wasn’t “a hero play,” as he phrased it, in which he reached for a ball for his bare hand, but “a get-me-out-of-the-way” kind of play.
“It just blew up,” Peters said of this thumb. “It was mangled.”
Peters said his immediate thoughts “weren’t very good,” but after visiting a hand specialist and having surgery — four screws and a plate embedded permanently into his throwing hand — Peters made it back to Double-A by the end of July. For someone who missed about a year following 2014 Tommy John surgery, those couple of months proved manageable. In nine starts with Jacksonville, Peters had a 1.97 ERA and 0.96 WHIP while striking out 40 batters and walking 11 in 45 2⁄3 innings. In his final three outings, he allowed one run in 17 2⁄3 innings. He learned of his looming promotion late Saturday night.
“I think I’m ready. I do. I truly believe that,” Peters said. “I feel honored that they called me up to help out the team. I’m going to do everything I can, whatever role they ask me to do, I’m going to perform to the best of my ability.”
Peters, who is the Marlins’ best chance at an inhouse rotation upgrade as they try to stay in the NL wild-card picture, isn’t expected to be a rotation savior. Manager Don Mattingly wouldn’t even commit to giving him a second start. Peters, listed at 5 foot 9 and 195 pounds, has a fastball in the low 90s, and MLB Pipeline ranks him as the No. 4 prospect in a farm system that places none on the sportwide top-100 list.
“We’re dropping him into that spot to give everybody an extra day, push everybody back. Then we can make some decisions on which way he go with different guys.”
Odds & ends
Left-hander Wei-Yin Chen (partially torn UCL in left elbow) will make a third rehab start Friday with High-A Jupiter. He is scheduled to throw two innings. … First baseman Justin Bour (right oblique strain) could join Jacksonville for a rehab assignment as soon as Saturday, Mattingly said. The minor league regular season ends Monday, but Jacksonville is headed to the Southern League playoffs, offering Bour more at-bat opportunities should he and the team deem them needed.