Marlins chart course with López sidelined

PHILADELPHIA -- The Marlins backloaded their starting rotation coming out of the break, expecting to have breakout righty Pablo López start Sunday’s series finale in Philadelphia before handing the ball to rookie sensation Trevor Rogers for Monday’s opener against the Nationals.

Yet after completing Saturday’s suspended game, it was instead Braxton Garrett who got the call for Sunday’s regularly scheduled contest in place of López, who was placed on the injured list Saturday due to a right rotator cuff strain. The Marlins are also giving Rogers an extra day coming out of the break, pushing his second-half debut to Tuesday (Monday’s starter has not been announced).

López has been a key member of Miami's "Big 3" this season, alongside Sandy Alcantara and Rogers. On Friday, manager Don Mattingly cited that trio -- and the young pitching staff, as a whole -- as one of the key reasons Miami believes it can still make a run in the NL East.

Now, Miami will need to find a replacement for López, who has a 3.03 ERA and 111 strikeouts in 101 innings this season. That comes after Alcantara was tagged for five runs for the third time in four starts on Friday. The last piece of that trio, Rogers, isn't making his second-half debut until Tuesday, as the club plans to limit his workload to 170-175 innings this season. He’s thrown 101 1/3 thus far.

López matched a season high with nine strikeouts in his last start before the break, turning in six solid frames in a win against the Braves on July 11. Though he felt fine after that start and through the All-Star break, the right-hander seemingly tweaked something while playing long toss -- as part of his normal between-starts routine -- on Friday.

“He was going to throw a bullpen [session] yesterday, and at the end of his long toss, he felt something, so he stopped that, then went in to see the trainers from there,” Mattingly said. “That's kind of where we've gotten down this road."

Making the injury more of a concern is the fact that López missed the final month of the 2018 season with a right shoulder strain, then missed more than two months the following year with the same injury. Though the Marlins are still running tests to determine the severity of the latest issue, Mattingly is hoping that they caught it early enough to prevent a lengthy absence this time around.

“I know it's in the same area as his other ones. He bounced back from that pretty good; all those pretty good,” Mattingly said. “It's hard to say, but hopefully it's going to be something that's minor, we rehab it and we go from there.”

Without López, the Marlins' rotation has the potential to remain a strength. Zach Thompson continued the solid start to his big league career on Saturday, allowing only two unearned runs over four innings to lower his ERA to 1.93 through six starts. He was lifted for a pinch-hitter in the fifth inning, with two on, two outs and Miami trailing by two and the rain starting to pour down.

That all came on the heels of 25-year-old Jordan Holloway spinning his second straight gem out of the bullpen on Friday, when he held Philadelphia hitless over five innings. Though he was only up for the day as the Marlins' 27th man, that performance led Mattingly to say that Holloway is "starting to demand the ball" with the way he's pitched his last two outings (two hits over 9 2/3 scoreless innings of relief).

Miami entered Sunday sitting eight games back of the first-place Mets in the National League East. The Marlins could cut that deficit to as little as 6 1/2 games by the end of the day -- or see it balloon to 9 1/2 games.

That number, coupled with López’s prognosis, could go a long way in determining how Miami approaches the July 30 Trade Deadline. Prior to Sunday's game, MLB Network insider Jon Heyman tweeted that the Marlins “are expected to be very active” in the trade market over the next 12 days.

Regardless, Mattingly expects his team to continue winning plenty of ballgames down the stretch.

“Nobody expects us to be moving Sandy or Pablo or Trevor, or any of these young arms that we have that give us a chance to win every night,” Mattingly said. “I look at this like, no matter what happens, that doesn't mean we're not going to be better in the second half than we were in the first. I look at it like we're gonna have a chance to win no matter which way we go.”