‘My best is yet to come’
Rockies’ Marquez addresses up-and -down season
German Marquez positively, firmly and absolutely believes that his best days are ahead.
Now the right-hander has to prove it, beginning Friday night when the Rockies host Arizona at Coors Field, where Marquez is 2-5 with a 6.09 ERA, 1.532 WHIP, and .308 batting average against this season.
“My best is still coming,” Marquez said. “There is an All-star in there and there’s more in the tank. I just need to be more consistent.”
After his last start at Coors Field, on Aug. 23 against Texas, Marquez used the phrase “frickin’ frustrated” to describe his outing — a six-inning performance in which he gave up six runs on eight hits, including two home runs. For the quietly intense but usually restrained right-hander, it was a powerful admission.
But in Marquez’s last two starts — a scoreless, seveninning, one-hit gem in New York against the Mets, and a two-run, three-hit, seveninning performance at Cincinnati — Marquez looked a lot like the All-star he was last season.
“He’s definitely been better,” pitching coach Darryl Scott said. “He’s commanding his fastball better. He’s keeping the ball down in the zone and then coming up in the zone when he wants to come up.
“Early on, he was moving too quickly down the slope (of the mound) and he was leaving pitches up. When he moves fast, his arm kind of gets behind him, and that’s when he leaves stuff up and can get hurt.”
Scott, who’s been working overtime to get Marquez right, is confident that the right-hander will evolve into the pitcher he can be.
“The thing about ‘Marky’ is that he uses setbacks as motivation,” Scott said. “He doesn’t pout. He’s always working to get better and he will.”
But there’s no getting around the fact that 2022 has been no joy ride for Marquez, as his 8-10 record, 4.86 ERA, 1.360 WHIP and .262 batting average against illustrate.
But Marquez is still only 27 and still averages 95.8 mph on his four-seam fastball and 95.1 on his sinker. And he’s learned a few things by going through a season of literal hard knocks.
“I think a lot of it is about focus,” Marquez said. “When I was struggling, I was losing my focus. But I have thrown all of that out of my mind and I’m concentrating on positive things now.
“I do think the experiences this year are going to help me the next year and for the rest of my career.”
Manager Bud Black loves hearing that.
“He’s got a lot of pride and he knows his place on this team,” Black said. “German knows the responsibility of the starting pitcher every fifth day and the importance of that to the outcome of the game he’s starting. He takes pride in being the guy who can carry the team on his shoulders that night.”
But it’s not just about mind games. There are some mechanical things going on, too. Marquez has been better about repeating his delivery, arm slot and release point.
He’s trusting his sinker more and he’s altered the grip on his knuckle curveball a little bit, giving the pitch more depth.
“We looked at the pitch on camera and we used all of the tech stuff and we said, ‘Ok, let’s see if we can make this more efficient,” Scott said. “Once we got the seems to where we wanted them, we started to see a little bit more depth to the curve. The first time we used the new grip we saw about 3 inches more dive to the ball.”
Over his first 20 starts — from the beginning of the season to the end of July — Marquez had a 5.29 ERA and .274 batting average against. Over his last six, the right-hander has a 3.55 ERA and a .223 average against.
“He’s had some really good games and a couple of rough ones,” Scott said. “After the ‘frickin’ frustrated’ game, he was like, ‘All right, that’s enough.’ Sometimes you need those setbacks. He’s a guy who’s motivated by a tough outing.”