JUPITER, Fla. -- Jordan Montgomery did not have the kind of outing Sunday he would have liked after being told two days earlier that he was the leading candidate to be the Yankees' fifth starter this season.
Montgomery entered Sunday's game -- a 7-5 Yankees loss to the Marlins at Roger Dean Chevrolet Stadium -- with a sparkling 1.04 ERA this spring. The Marlins, however, touched the lanky left-hander for four runs in just 2 1/3 innings. He allowed five hits, issued two walks and had three strikeouts.
"A little rough," Montgomery said of his third Grapefruit League start after giving up only one run on two hits in 3 2/3 innings in his last outing. "Just kind of in between tempos right now, working fast, working slow."
Yankees manager Aaron Boone believes that Montgomery will figure it out sooner rather than later.
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"Continue to work on that command," Boone said of Montgomery, who was 9-7 with a 3.88 ERA in his first Major League season last year. "The swing-and-miss stuff is still there. All of his pitches are effective for him. When he gets relying on the fastball, that's when he's going to get hit. It's just that secondary pitch he's got to hone."
Boone said that Montgomery has the delivery that can frustrate opposing batters.
"I remember first seeing him last year and just thinking, as a hitter, like myself, I hated facing guys like that -- lefties that created that angle," Boone said. "He creates a really tough angle because of his size, and he's kind of over the top. And now seeing him up close, just seeing the amount of swings and misses he gets from even good hitters on breaking balls in the dirt, it's just a pitch they don't see very well."
Jeter sighting, but no Stanton
Giancarlo Stanton did not make the nearly four-hour trip across the state to face his former team, but Yankees fans in attendance acknowledged Derek Jeter with applause when the new co-owner of the Marlins sat down in one of the suites at the stadium.
"I didn't ask him one way or the other. I honestly didn't give it much thought," Boone said of Stanton's absence at the stadium that used to be his Spring Training home. "He was off today. He'll play back-to-back the next two days."
Marlins manager Don Mattingly also said he didn't read anything into Stanton's absence. He knows he'll see his former slugger soon enough when the Marlins travel to New York in mid-April for a two-game Interleague series.
"I wouldn't be disappointed at all if I could miss him in the regular season," Mattingly said.

Injury report
• Boone had good news to report about second baseman Tyler Wade, who exited Saturday's game after rolling his left wrist diving for a grounder up the middle. Wade did not make the trip to Jupiter, but Boone said he "checked out really good" Sunday morning back Tampa.
"He was able to do upper-body work. The wrist is good to go," Boone said of Wade, who is expected to be back in the Yankees' lineup Monday night against the Twins. "I guess we [avoided a problem] in a way, especially considering our initial reaction to what it looked like."
• The status of outfielder Clint Frazier remains the same.
"Just can't quite get past those initial humps," Boone said Frazier, who has been out since Feb. 24 with a concussion and was scheduled to meet with a neurologist again Sunday.
"We'll just continue to follow [the doctor's] lead on it. Obviously it's not something you want to mess with or take lightly. The good news we keep getting is all the tests and everything checked out pretty well. So we just got to be able to continue to slowly progress to where we can eventually ramp up his activities.
• Boone said that Jacoby Ellsbury (right oblique) is progressing well.
"I think he's doing some soft-toss and tee work [Sunday]. Hope he continues to move forward. Hopefully in the next couple days, we can start to map out a plan for him to get back into game action."