Garrett gets in the zone in stellar return

MIAMI -- Less than two weeks ago, the Marlins optioned left-hander Braxton Garrett to Triple-A Jacksonville as the odd man out in a rotation with six healthy starters.

In his return to the Majors, Garrett pitched six strong innings in Friday night’s 5-2 victory over the Nationals at loanDepot park.

“Of course I didn't want to get optioned there,” Garrett said. “I thought I'd done well, but it's just the business of the game. We have a lot of really good pitchers, and I just had to go down. It is what it is. I don't think anybody in my position would have been happy with it, but I just try and take everything in stride and continue to just do my job as best I can, wherever that is.”

When the Marlins optioned Garrett on Sep. 13, he held a 3.68 ERA in 14 starts. But he had just returned from a right oblique strain for the second game of a doubleheader and he hadn’t fully built up his pitch count.

Miami wanted to make sure its starting pitchers accumulated innings and didn’t skip turns. Garrett, Edward Cabrera and Jesús Luzardo have missed time with injuries, Pablo López continues to add to his career-high innings count and Sandy Alcantara is vying for the franchise’s first Cy Young Award.

Garrett’s absence from the Majors didn’t last long since left-hander Trevor Rogers sustained a season-ending Grade 1 lat strain last Saturday. In his lone start with the Jumbo Shrimp that same night, Garrett went five innings on 82 pitches. That’s why despite Garrett needing just 80 pitches to complete six frames on Friday, manager Don Mattingly pulled him.

“His pitch count was good, but we're still kind of in build mode for him,” Mattingly said. “It's not like he's been building up his starts. So [pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre Jr.] didn't really want to take him to the limit of his pitches.”

For the fifth time in 15 starts, Garrett pitched at least six innings. He didn’t walk a batter for just the second time. His lone blemish was a leadoff homer by Lane Thomas on the second pitch of the game.

In the past, that home run might have made Garrett panic. Instead, he kept his composure and made pitches.

"His slider was very good,” Nationals manager Dave Martinez said. “He had good deception on his slider. Short, quicker kind of slider, and he kept it down. We were trying to get the ball up, but everything he threw, he threw underneath us. Like I said, they couldn't see the ball."

The 25-year-old southpaw used to be a curveball guy. The slider has become his pitch -- and a difference maker in 2022.

“Early in the season when my slider started to come around the new grip, I started getting more swing-and-misses,” Garrett said. “My fastball command continued to get better as the season went on, and that just built confidence in itself. But the work I did when I got up here with Mel was instrumental. I've learned the game, and it's slowed down so much just since my first start here. It's been great.”

That has been key to Garrett’s success this season. So has his understanding of what type of pitcher he must be. It begins with his ability to remain in the zone. Of his 80 pitches on Friday, 62 of them were strikes. His 77.5 strike percentage was the highest of his career.

When Garrett falls behind in counts, it’s tough for him because he doesn’t possess overpowering stuff. His velocity ranged from 76.8-92.8 mph in the series opener.

“Just continue on using his whole mix, because that's what he is,” Mattingly said pregame. “He's going to be up and down, in and out, changing speeds, and it's different than guys pitch nowadays. So it is definitely a different look. It's not going to be power or overpower or trying to throw the fastball by guys all the time. It's going to be keeping guys off-balance.

“If you guys remember when we talked about him last year, it was like he needs to locate, he needs to get ahead in counts, he needs to be able to get his breaking ball over. All that. And really that's what he's been able to do, which has been refreshing.”