{"id":665006,"date":"2026-04-05T18:18:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T18:18:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/665006\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T18:18:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T18:18:17","slug":"the-special-reason-the-marlins-are-starting-pete-fairbanks-vs-yankees-instead-of-usual-closer-role","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/665006\/","title":{"rendered":"The special reason the Marlins are starting Pete Fairbanks vs. Yankees instead of usual closer role"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pete Fairbanks is unquestionably the closer for the Miami Marlins<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Against the New York Yankees<\/a> on Sunday, Fairbanks will be the starting pitcher.<\/p>\n

He’s only made two previous starts, both in 2020 for the Tampa Bay Rays<\/a>, and this wasn’t the initial plan for Sunday.<\/p>\n

But he’ll be the opener in front of Chris Paddack, and for the coolest reason.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Jo Adell robbed 3 home runs in the same game<\/a><\/p>\n

Why is Pete Fairbanks starting today?<\/p>\n

Fairbanks is starting Sunday because of what comes next in his schedule.<\/p>\n

On Monday morning, Fairbanks’ wife is being induced to give birth, according to Isaac Azout<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That means that once Fairbanks pitches on Sunday, he’ll be hustling back to Florida.<\/p>\n

The game was initially supposed to start at 1:35 p.m. ET, and in that setup, Fairbanks would’ve still come out of the bullpen.<\/p>\n

With a rain delay, though, this is the easiest way for the Marlins to ensure they get an inning out of Fairbanks.<\/p>\n

So far this season, Fairbanks has thrown 3.0 scoreless innings, striking out five and recording two saves.<\/p>\n

It’s his first season with Miami after seven years with the Tampa Bay Rays.<\/p>\n

Soon enough, Fairbanks will be back closing games. But on this day, ahead of a special life milestone, Fairbanks gets the ball to pitch the bottom of the first inning in Yankee Stadium.<\/p>\n

More MLB news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pete Fairbanks is unquestionably the closer for the Miami Marlins. Against the New York Yankees on Sunday, Fairbanks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":665007,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2395],"tags":[5,1816,778,58,4171,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-665006","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-miami-marlins","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-marlins","10":"tag-miami","11":"tag-miami-marlins","12":"tag-miamimarlins","13":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116353480861731372","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=665006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665006\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/665007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=665006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=665006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=665006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}