Soler, Segura, De La Cruz stepping up for Miami Marlins

SAN FRANCISCO

Skip Schumaker has used the phrase multiple times this season.

“We need [insert player here] to get going,” the Miami Marlins manager has said about a variety of players at different points during the first quarter of the season.

The sentiment is heightened even more at the moment with three key players sidelined. Center fielder Jazz Chisholm Jr. is out for at least a month with turf toe. Outfielder Avisail Garcia has been out since April 28 with back tightness. And yet another outfielder, Jesus Sanchez, is also on the injured list with a right hamstring strain.

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So the pressure is on the rest of the Marlins’ lineup to step up.

And, to Schumaker’s delight, a few of the team’s key players have started to hit their stride or have broken out of slumps to become key contributors as the team takes a four-game winning streak into its series opener against the San Francisco Giants on Friday at Oracle Park.

Here are three of those players.

Jorge Soler

The Marlins’ slugger slumped his way through the end of April and into the early days of May. Soler went through a 14-game stretch without a home run that ended on May 4. In that 14 game stretch, he hit just .177 and struck out in 18 of his 58 plate appearances.

Since that May 4 game, Soler is hitting .300 (15 for 50). Six of his 15 hits in this 13-game stretch are home runs. He has 14 RBI and 11 runs scored in this timeframe as well.

“When he’s hot,” Schumaker said, “we’re so much better. That’s just the reality. … When you have Soler up, you always feel good because he can change the score like that. And I don’t care what kind of slump he’s in. You just feel good. With one swing of the bat, he can do something like that.”

On the season Soler’s team-leading 11 home runs are tied for eighth in MLB. He also leads the Marlins with 24 RBI and 22 runs scored and is in a tie for the team lead with nine doubles. Seven of his 11 home runs have either tied the score or given the Marlins a lead, including his walk-off home run on Tuesday and his go-ahead shot in the fourth inning on Wednesday as part of the Marlins’ series sweep of the Washington Nationals.

Bryan De La Cruz

De La Cruz has already gone through his shares of extended highs and lows this season.

It started with an exciting first 19 games of the season, when he opened the year hitting a blistering .328 with 13 extra-base hits.

Then it was an eight-game stretch immediately following that in which he hit just .069 and had 18 strikeouts over 30 plate appearances.

Now, De La Cruz is back to his early season form. He enters Friday riding a career-high 12-game hitting streak in games in which he has a plate appearance (was used as pinch-runner in the ninth inning of Miami’s May 10 game against the Arizona Diamondbacks after Sanchez strained his hamstring). During that 12-game stretch, De La Cruz is hitting .362 (17 for 47) with two home runs, four doubles, six RBI and eight runs scored. He has a .975 on-base-plus-slugging percentage and a .471 batting average on balls in play (which doesn’t factor in strikeouts or home runs).

“He’s all in,” Schumaker said, “and he trusts. … He’s a hitter. Hitters hit, and he’s one of the hitters.”

Jean Segura

Segura’s turnaround, while the smallest sample size of the trio, might be the most important.

The veteran infielder had failed to get any type of momentum going through his first 33 games of the season. His batting average had dipped to .186. His OPS was down to .446 — the lowest of all qualified hitters at that point. And the frustration had fully boiled over on that day, May 8, to the point where he was ejected after arguing his third strikeout of the night.

Schumaker gave Segura a couple days off from game action to reset.

“This guy is not OK with where he’s at right now,” Schumaker said. “I think good things will happen to him, because I think just hard work equals good luck. And he’s due for some good luck.”

Since then? Segura is finally experiencing his first bit of sustained success at the plate.

He safely reached base in all six games last homestand, hitting .350 (7 for 20) with five walks against just two strikeouts over those games against the Cincinnati Reds and Nationals.