PORT ST. LUCIE, FL—Miami Marlins baseball returned on Saturday as they faced off against the New York Mets. The teams combined for four total hits in the 2-1 Marlins exhibition game win. We were able to see Robby Snelling make his first spring training start, Christopher Morel play first base and the automated ball-strike challenge system in play.
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Snelling makes first spring start
Fish On First’s number three prospect Robby Snelling took the mound for the first inning. He threw 10 pitches, setting the top of the Mets order down in 1-2-3 fashion. That included Marcus Semien, Juan Soto and Bo Bichette. Snelling went with a fastball/curveball combo, with his fastball topping out at 96.4 mph and generating one swing with the curveball.
“It’s always tough getting one inning, small sample sizes, only 10 pitches through the entire inning,” said Snelling. “I go back and look that I didn’t get to show the entire repertoire, but being able to go out and have a scoreless inning to start the spring, that is a big confidence builder. Even happier to be in the zone, like I was against a really good starting three.”
Snelling, who isn’t on the 40-man roster, still enters spring with a real chance at cracking the Marlins Opening Day rotation.
“If you don’t go into spring with that mindset, I don’t want to say you don’t belong there, but you got to have a little competitive fire in you,” said Snelling.
Early on in camp, it’s been the “nine pockets,” which are meant to help you target certain spots in the strike zone.
“This helped me big time last year,” Snelling said. “I’ve been doing that throughout spring and I think if you fall 2-0 to a really, really good hitter, you can’t leave anything middle-middle in the danger zone. Being able to know where your stuff’s going to end up is throwing it into the nine pocket. I pictured a nine pocket back there, and (Agustin Ramirez) was my nine pocket.”
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Marlins “bullpen”
After Snelling, the following pitchers each threw one inning: Ryan Gusto, Tyler Phillips, Cade Gibson, Zach Brzykcy, Jack Ralston, Josh Ekness, Nigel Belgrave and Stephen Jones.
Gusto recorded the first strikeout of the spring for the Marlins, getting MJ Melendez to swing on a 95.0 mph fastball. This offseason, Gusto tweaked his sweeper and added a completely new changeup.
“We were really moving the pointer finger on the sweeper, just figuring out a way for me to get to the front of the ball a little bit better, make that spin a little bit tighter and more efficient, so it can help them move and be more consistent,” Gusto said following his outing.
He threw the sweeper twice, generating one whiff with it.
After attempting many different changeup grips, Gusto has finally settled on one that “will be able to work with the way that I leverage the ball individually for me.” Before using it in game action, he was able to throw is in his most recent live and hitters told him it was “moving a lot, just wasn’t locating it well enough.” On Saturday, he threw it three times, generating three whiffs.
“He got a little bit everything too,” McCullough said. “It was nice that first one, he had a deep at-bat, was able to finish that off. To get some working out of the stretch and probably most importantly, he felt healthy. He came into camp feeling good and then to have this first one go that way, it’s a good start.”
Phillips struck out Marcus Semien swinging with his splitter. His fastball topped out at 97.8 mph, which was faster than any pitch of his MLB career. The Marlins expect to stretch Phillips out given his prior experience as a starting pitcher and extensive pitch mix.
“We talked last year on even the potential of him starting,” McCullough said. “I think he has those capabilities and we’ll see how that plays out. I think we’ll just want to continuously increase him, whether that’s giving us really good length out of the ‘pen and you can certainly pitch him in short bursts, and as crazy as things can get during the season, also the ability to even go through the lineup a couple of times.”
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Plan at first base
On Saturday, free agent signing Christopher Morel started at first base with Griffin Conine playing right field, both for five innings. That will be the plan until the Marlins feel comfortable with Conine playing first base in a game. Morel will move around the field as well, per McCullough.
Morel looked comfortable in his first ever start at first base, making a couple of nice plays, specifically in the bottom of the first inning to get the final out. He finished the day hitless, but was able to drive in the Marlins’ second run of the game on a sac fly in the top of the sixth inning, scoring Jakob Marsee.
“Probably in a lot of ways couldn’t have been any better for Christopher (Morel),” said Marlins manager Clayton McCullough. “Not only making the plays, but some of them were not just your garden variety, leaving the first, the high chopper that takes him kind of going into foul territory, get himself under control and make a nice read. He attacks some other ones very well and gave himself some good hops to play with. He’s looked great on the backfields, and certainly knew that he was going to prepare himself as best he could coming into camp for this and I’m glad he got a lot of chances, and hope he just continues to get more of those in spring training.”
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ABS challenge system strategy
New York Mets manager Carlos Mendoza told his players to “be aggressive” with the ABS challenge system this spring—that way they can create a strategy for the regular season based on who’s getting calls overturned. McCullough plans on using it in a similar way, at least with the position players.
“I’ve told our position players that they have the ability to challenge in spring training,” McCullough said pregame. “You need to meet a percentage threshold that you feel pretty certain that this is. If you get it wrong, there’ll be a tax you have to pay me and if you get it right, then you don’t get anything from me, other than you get to build some equity and trust in myself and the staff.
“If a guy goes 5-for-5 in spring training, what does that mean for the season? I think everyone will look at the samples in their own way. We’re talking through actively some more team philosophy and some team things that we’ll be thinking about rolling out for the season.”
On Saturday, each team challenged once and both were unsuccessful. Brian Navarreto, who entered the game in place of AgustÃn RamÃrez, challenged for Miami. Mets catching prospect Kevin Parada challenged while batting in the bottom of the ninth inning.
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What’s next?
The Marlins begin a stretch of four straight games at Roger Dean Chevrolet Stadium, located in Jupiter, Florida. Sandy Alcantara will take the mound for the Marlins on Sunday, as they welcome the Washington Nationals. First pitch is slated for 1:10 pm. The game will not be televised, but you can listen to it on MLB.com.