‘Time has come’ for Miami’s young arms to lead revival
Jose Ureña finished his final start of spring training on Sunday and looked the best that he had over the course of the past six weeks.
Three perfect innings. Two strikeouts. Just 30 pitches for nine outs.
He needed a performance like that, one final high note before it all becomes real.
Because it will become real on Thursday when he steps onto the mound at Marlins Park at 4:10 p.m. to face the Colorado Rockies and serve as the Marlins’ Opening Day starter for the second consecutive season.
“The time has come,” Ureña said. But not just for him. The same can be said for Trevor Richards, Pablo Lopez, Sandy Alcantara and Caleb Smith, the quartet of young pitchers joining Ureña in the starting rotation to begin the season.
Dan Straily is gone, released on Monday morning. Wei-Yin Chen is coming out of the bullpen, a move announced on Sunday.
That leaves the Marlins’ starting rotation in the hands of five pitchers all between the ages of 23 and 27. Four of those pitchers have yet to play through a full major-league season. Is there potential? Definitely. But how soon that core reaches its potential — and how many ebbs and flows they go through as they work to get there — will play a heavy hand in how the Marlins fare in 2019.
“We’re going to be built on starting pitching, and these guys are part of our future,” Marlins president of baseball operations Michael Hill said Monday. “We want to give them every opportunity to continue to grow and help us win games.”
Mel Stottlemyre Jr. saw the potential from the start of spring training. The 55-year-old heading into his eighth year as an MLB coach was confident enough at the start of camp to say that, “This is bar none the youngest, and this is dangerous — the youngest, and most talented, bunch of arms I’ve ever dealt with in all my years coaching.”
But there was still work to be done.
His focus for most of spring training revolved around his pitchers adding to their arsenals, primarily a breaking ball, and improving command.
It worked for Richards, who added both a curveball and a
cutter this spring to go with a changeup that rivals most major-league pitchers and his four-seam fastball. It worked for Lopez, who’s slider looked improved this spring. It worked for Alcantara, whose five-pitch mix — highlighted by a fastball that reached 98 mph — is dangerous when he has command of all of them.
And while spring training numbers will become arbitrary once the season starts on Thursday, one stat from the last month pops out. The Marlins’ starting rotation struck out 87 batters over 812⁄3 innings. They walked just 22, almost a 4-to-1 ratio.
“The experience that a number of these guys got last year, we’re starting to see dividends,” Hill said. “The growing pains they went through last year, has benefited their mindset, their approach.”
Now, back to Ureña. Marlins manager Don Mattingly named him the Opening Day starter two days into spring training.
He has a chance to rebound from last year’s season-opening meltdown against the Chicago Cubs — a home run surrendered to Ian Happ on the first pitch, three hit batters, two more walks and three runs allowed in an eventual 8-4 loss.
But he also has a chance to build on his strong close to the season that began after he plunked Atlanta Braves rising star Ronald Acuna Jr. on Aug. 15. In Ureña’s final seven starts, he went 6-0 with a 1.80 ERA over 45 innings, striking out 26 while walking 14.
Regardless, he’s the de-facto leader for the young rotation of five. He won’t say much. He doesn’t need to.
“He’s involved all the time,” Mattingly said. “He’s just a good example for our guys, and he still has ceiling . ... It was a pretty easy choice. That’s why I named him early to let everyone know that this is your guy.”
Ureña doesn’t want the focus to be solely on him, though. To the Marlins’ ace, he’s just another part of the plan. He’ll go out every five games, pitch to the best of his ability and hope his teammates do the same.
“I told them, ‘We’re a family,’ ” Ureña said. “We spend all our time together . ... We have to work hard to prepare so we can compete the best we can.”
And like a family, they challenge each other.
After Lopez threw four perfect innings on March 9, Caleb Smith matched him with four perfect innings of his own four days later in his spring debut. Richards joined in the fun four days after that with six no-hit innings, one start after throwing five scoreless frames.
“Everyone is just nasty,” Lopez said. “Everyone goes out there and gives everything they’ve got every single day. As a group, we support each other. As a group, we feed off each other. We give feedback. We’re always trying to push everyone to their limits.
But the question still remains: Will this young group be able to sustain