Marlins Avoid Losing Another Key Pitcher to Injury

MIAMI — The Miami Marlins fell to the Tampa Bay Rays 6-0 on Friday, but the loss could have been much worse.

Plaugued by numerous injuries over the course of the past few weeks, the Marlins almost lost one of their more valuable arms when Tyler Phillips took a line drive to the leg, hit by Yandy Diaz in the fifth inning. After the Marlins collectively held their breath, he shook it off and finished the inning.

Phillips threw a total of 4.2 innings on 82 pitches, with three runs allowed on seven hits. Phillips told reporters that Marlins manager Clayton McCullough told him, “You don’t have to be a hero, we’ll figure it out.” However, under the impression that he had “a duty to try to save the bullpen,” Phillips knew he could keep going due to “the fact that I was walking.”

“If it hit me in the ankle bone, my foot probably would have been in pieces,” Phillips said, “and you probably would have seen me army crawling off of the field.”

Each Phillips outing this season has “been different every time,” and he’s not wrong. The Marlins used him as a starting pitcher recently because he was the one bullpen arm who consistently threw three innings earlier in the season. He was stretched out to five innings at Washington before McCullough went with the strategy of starting Ryan Gusto for two innings with Phillips piggybacking him.

McCullough has been frequently criticized for using his bullpen too much and taking starting pitchers out too early. Now he has no choice but to rely on his bullpen more than ever. 

“You’re just gonna go pitch,” McCullough said before Friday’s game. “We need a couple of innings today, go take down a couple of innings. If you need to follow someone and chew up more of the middle part of the game, then we’re gonna ask you to do that.”