MIAMI — Trevor Rogers handed the ball to manager Skip Schumaker and started making his way to the dugout. The Miami Marlins’ left-handed pitcher’s start had come to an end after allowing back-to-back hits to start the seventh inning, the only time he had allowed multiple runners to reach base in an inning on Friday against the Arizona Diamondbacks.
As Rogers walked off the field, the loanDepot park crowd gave him a rousing ovation. He tipped his teal cap back.
Rogers’ effort in Friday’s 5-1 win to begin a three-game series with the Diamondbacks — and to put Miami at .500 with a 7-7 record — was one reminiscent of his 2021 season when he was an All-Star and the runner-up for the National League Rookie of the Year.
He gave up just one run over six-plus innings on five hits and a walk. He struck out seven and landed 65 of his 96 pitches for strikes.
Rogers allowed no more than one baserunner in each of his first six innings of work and never allowed a runner to get into scoring position in that span. He struck out multiple batters in three of those innings and got strikeouts on three different pitches — three with his sinker (a new pitch this year) and two apiece with the change-up and four-seam fastball.
Huascar Brazoban relieved Rogers in the seventh and allowed just one of the two inherited runners to score, with Evan Longoria making it home on a Gabriel Moreno RBI fielder’s choice.
Dylan Floro pitched a scoreless eighth and A.J. Puk capped the game with a scoreless ninth.
Rogers and the Marlins’ pitching staff got all the run support they needed in the fourth inning, when Miami strung together four consecutive two out hits to plate all five of their runs, all against Diamondbacks starter Madison Bumgarner.
It started with a Jacob Stallings single up the middle that scored Avisail Garcia from second base. One pitch later, Garrett Hampson hit an RBI double to left that barely missed clearing the wall. Two pitches after that, Jon Berti hit a two-run double. And five pitches after that, Garrett Cooper capped scoring with an RBI single to center field.
Cooper and Bryan De La Cruz each had three hits.
Arizona falls to 8-6.
