Miami Marlins: 3 Players that need to “Break-Out” for the Marlins in 2021

1. Pablo Lopez – Miami Marlins SP

While Pablo Lopez may be a known commodity to Miami Marlins’ fans, he is fairly unknown on the national baseball scene.

Lopez is in year four of his young MLB career, but hasn’t necessarily had the most “eye-popping” production during his first three MLB season’s.

The now 25-year old RHP made his MLB debut during the 2018 season by starting 10 games on the mound for the Fish. At first glance for fans, Lopez appeared to be just another average starting pitcher posting a 2-4 record with a 4.14 ERA during 58.2 innings pitched. While he showed flashes at times, things however didn’t necessarily improve during year two for Lopez either.

Lopez doubled his starts during the 2019 MLB season where he went 5-8 with a 5.09 ERA in 111.1 innings pitched. Every statistical category nearly doubled for Lopez during year two, which was expected, but would need to show improvement entering year three.

That improvement did come in the shortened 2020 MLB season as he had a “break-out” season going 6-4 with a 3.61 ERA in 11 starts. This was evident through a few notable categories, which included a career-low 7.8 H/9, as well as a career-high 9.3 K/9.

Fast forward to this season, and the Marlins are receiving exactly what they hoped for with Lopez. Through his first six starts of the season, Lopez has a career-low ERA of 2.34, as well as also being on track to put up career-highs in K’s, K/9, as well as career-low’s in WHIP and H/9.

As mentioned previously, Lopez isn’t underrated to the Marlins, but is on track to solidify himself as a legit top pitcher in the Miami rotation for years to come.

If Lopez also continues his current trends, could he make a case to be the Marlins ace?