Former Carlsbad pitcher Trevor Rogers to stay with Miami Marlins during road trip

Carlsbad's Trevor Rogers impressed the Miami Marlins organization enough with his major league performance on Tuesday to earn himself a spot with the team for the rest of its northeast road trip.

Rogers started for the Marlins and threw four scoreless innings, striking out six batters before Miami's offense scored three runs to give the team a 3-0 win.

Rogers wasn't credited with the win because he was pulled before Miami took the lead.

The effort didn't go unnoticed, as he will be staying with the 40-man roster rather than rejoining one of Miami’s minor league affiliates.

"I don't know anything beyond that," Rogers said. "I had a talk with my pitching coach (Mel Stottlemyre) and he said (Miami) is trying to get some sort of plan together because they know some of the guys who had COVID are coming back. They're just taking it day-by-day right now." 

Now more than 24 hours since he completed his first MLB game, Rogers said the feeling finally sunk in that he achieved a goal he set back when he was a 6-year-old boy.

"I still look back and think, 'Wow. I just pitched in the Big Leagues.' It's still a little surreal to me though," he said. "I was shagging hits in BP (batting practice) and one of our coaches came up to me and asked if I wanted any advice. When I said sure he said, 'If you keep pitching like you did yesterday, you're going to be pitching here the rest of your career.'"

Lucky No. 95?

Rogers wore No. 16 his final three seasons pitching for Carlsbad High School from 2015 to 2017. However, he hasn't had one constant jersey number since he went pro, with most of them being numbers in the 20's. He wore No. 95 during his Spring Training win and once again wore it against the Mets on Tuesday.

Throughout the game against New York, Rogers threw around 95 miles per hour constantly with his fastball. Thirteen of his pitches registered 95 miles per hour, and another 13 pitches between 94.5 and 94.9 miles per hour.

"They gave me that number as a non-roster invite to Spring Training so it's expected to be a high number," Rogers said.

The only other MLB player to wear No. 95 was Takahito Nomura, a pitcher for the 2002 Milwaukee Brewers, who lasted a single season pitching just 13 2/3 innings over 21 games and had an atrocious earned run average of 8.56.

Welcome to the K-borhood

The Marlins’ social media account had fun during Rogers' debut, welcoming all six strikeout victims to join what the organization has dubbed "Mr. Rogers K-borhood" in reference to the "K" symbol being a shorthand for "strikeout" in baseball. 

Rogers also loved it when he found out the reference to the iconic children's show.

"It was awesome," he said. "I watched 'Mister Rogers' Neighborhood' growing up. I loved the quotes. Our family used to get (those references) a lot, but not so much anymore because a lot of people now don't know who Mr. Rogers is. That's a little sad, but when I saw that photo capture it made me smile from ear-to-ear. Definitely my favorite caption of the night."

Rogers noted he will start searching for an iconic red sweater jacket and some comfortable tennis shoes in the near future.

Matthew Asher can be reached at 575-628-5524, masher@currentargus.com or @Caveman_Masher on Twitter.

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