Germ\u00e1n M\u00e1rquez has struggled mightily to begin this season. After a stellar 2021, injuries and inconsistency have made it a long road. After a 2022 season in which he finished with a 4.95 ERA in 31 games, he played a combined five games the next two seasons. Finally, M\u00e1rquez reached spring training this season with a healthy elbow for the first time in several seasons. However, while his health is not an issue, this season is a great sign; he has struggled mightily.<\/p>\n
It has been a historically bad season for the Colorado Rockies. Following two consecutive seasons in which the Rockies finished with 100+ losses, the 4-25 Rockies are on pace for a third. While the offense has been a major culprit<\/a>, every facet of the team shares blame. After a solid first start, M\u00e1rquez has not been good. In six games this season, M\u00e1rquez is 0-5 with an ugly 9.82 ERA and brutal 15:12 K: BB ratio in 25 2\/3 innings pitched.<\/p>\n M\u00e1rquez struck out batters in his best seasons at a high rate and consistently went deep into ballgames. When he has struggled, walking has been a major issue. Walks have once again reared their ugly head for M\u00e1rquez. M\u00e1rquez has issued at least one BB in six consecutive starts. Marquez gave up three and six walks in starts against the Kansas City Royals and Athletics, respectively. Since a six-inning shutout against the Philadelphia Phillies to begin the season, M\u00e1rquez has allowed at least five earned runs in his last four starts. While he is good at avoiding the barrel, he has struggled in almost every other category.<\/p>\n Per Statcast<\/a>, M\u00e1rquez has allowed a 4.2%-barrel rate, good for the 81st percentile in Major League Baseball. M\u00e1rquez’s two home runs allowed are tied for the lowest among Rockies’ starting pitchers. But Marquez is consistently getting battered by hard hits. Per Statcast:<\/p>\n Limiting the long ball is a major part of succeeding at Coors Field. But M\u00e1rquez is not missing bats, and when opposing batters do make contact, it’s hard contact. While M\u00e1rquez’s fastball velo is on par with his last full season in 2022, several other areas point to why he is struggling more this season. Per Statcast<\/a>, there are several categories in which M\u00e1rquez performed better in 2022.<\/p>\n Combined with low homers, he has succeeded with a high groundball rate and consistent Ks in his career. Both categories have gone down 10% and 5% since 2022, respectively. Without an effective way to get out of innings, opposing lineups are feeding off of M\u00e1rquez.<\/p>\n His ugliest start of the season came against the Los Angeles Dodgers on April 16 in an 8-7 Rockies loss. After Colorado took a rare 1-0 lead, M\u00e1rquez failed to get out of the first inning. M\u00e1rquez struck out Mookie Betts in between mammoth homers to right by Shohei Ohtani and Freddie Freeman. Understandable against two of the best players in the MLB.<\/p>\n But the inning imploded after M\u00e1rquez got Teoscar Hernandez to fly out to second. After Michael Conforto reached on an infield single, a pitch hit Tommy Edman, and Max Muncy walked. Andy Pages followed with an RBI single that scored two Dodgers before Austin Barnes hit an RBI double that scored two more. Once Ohtani came back up and recorded his second RBI of the inning against M\u00e1rquez, reliever Angel Chivilli entered the ballgame.<\/p>\n All the issues plaguing M\u00e1rquez appeared in this inning. His lack of control when a pitch and a BB hit him followed a single to load the bases. The Dodgers are too good not to take advantage of those opportunities and punished M\u00e1rquez for it. Now facing a 4-1 deficit with two runners on second and third with two outs, he just needed to get by the Dodgers’ ninth-hole hitter in Barnes.<\/p>\n After three pitches, M\u00e1rquez had Barnes at 1-2. This is where opposing batters used to be in trouble, as M\u00e1rquez had a back-breaking curveball to rely on to consistently get Ks. Instead, a knuckle curve right in Barnes’ breadbasket got hit to left field, and the inning continued. M\u00e1rquez pitched like an ace for Colorado in 2021. Now, he is trudging through a tough season. The BB rate is up, the groundball rate is down, and the hard hits are in bulk. Can M\u00e1rquez ever get back to the All-Star form he showed in 2021?<\/p>\n Injuries truly are a shame. M\u00e1rquez had proved to be a gem for the Rockies since coming over in the Corey Dickerson trade with the Tampa Bay Rays in 2016. Starting pitchers who can consistently be effective in Colorado are a rarity. The Rockies found two of them at the same time, M\u00e1rquez and LHP Kyle Freeland. Freeland and M\u00e1rquez, leading the rotation, led the Rockies to their last postseason appearance in 2018.<\/p>\n But after 2021-22, in which M\u00e1rquez threw 361 2\/3 innings, his elbow wore out, and he had to get Tommy John. Some worried that M\u00e1rquez would never suit up for the Rockies again. It appeared that it was trending in that direction when, after just one game last season, M\u00e1rquez was immediately shut down because of a stress reaction in his elbow. But he rehabbed in the offseason and got through a full spring training healthy. Lending hope that perhaps he could perform well this season<\/a> on the heels of his first normal offseason in years.<\/p>\n But it has not gone that way so far. It is probably unfair to hope for him to reach that form again. Missing nearly two seasons of baseball is very hard to come back from. But that hope is needed for a hapless Rockies rotation that is a part of a team trending to have the worst record in franchise history. It was a treat to watch M\u00e1rquez dominate in 2021, a season in which he became just the eighth Rockies pitcher<\/a> to make an All-Star Game. He is in the record books in almost every Rockies’ pitching category, just recording his 1,000th career K<\/a> in his last start against the Royals. The first Rockies pitcher to do so in franchise history. He is easy to root for, and a fanbase without much of anything to root for is hoping they can get a sliver of that M\u00e1rquez again. Only time will tell if they will.<\/p>\n Main Photo Credits: Eric Hartline-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Germ\u00e1n M\u00e1rquez has struggled mightily to begin this season. After a stellar 2021, injuries and inconsistency have made it a long road. After a 2022 season in which he finished with a 4.95 ERA in 31 games, he played a combined five games the next two seasons. Finally, M\u00e1rquez reached spring training this season with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5354,"featured_media":99856,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1071,32],"tags":[28464,28381,2914,1719,206,3867,2227,2240,689,250,2178,1198,3899],"class_list":["post-99835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mlb","category-rockies","tag-andy-pages","tag-angel-chivilli","tag-austin-barnes","tag-corey-dickerson","tag-freddie-freeman","tag-german-marquez","tag-kyle-freeland","tag-max-muncy","tag-michael-conforto","tag-mookie-betts","tag-shohei-ohtani","tag-teoscar-hernandez","tag-tommy-edman"],"modified_by":"Evan Mazza, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5354"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99835"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99835\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":99858,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99835\/revisions\/99858"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Behind The Numbers<\/h3>\n
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Culmination of Issues in LA<\/h3>\n
Outlook for M\u00e1rquez Moving Forward<\/h3>\n