Miami left-hander Mark Buehrle pitched seven innings Saturday, pushing his season total to 180 2/3 innings. He will get three more starts and he will need to average just under seven innings to notch a 12th straight season of 200 innings.
“It’s going to be tough,” Buehrle said about continuing his streak. “Ozzie (Guillen, Miami’s manager) kind of said something about pulling me out in the sixth inning. Came over and asked me how I was doing. I said I’m fine. He said, ‘You just want to get to 200 innings.’ I said, ‘You’re damn right I do.’
“Obviously it’s a big goal of mine. I want to get to it, and I knew I needed about seven innings for these last four starts. If it happens, it does. If not, it’s not going to dampen my season. I made every start. I wasn’t hurt. I went out there and pitched fairly well enough to get to it. It’s just a difference between the American league and the National League.”
The Marlins are using a six-man rotation, so Buehrle’s final starts each fall on a Saturday. If he comes up a few innings short of 200 after his start on Sept. 29, the Marlins could let him pitch in relief over the final two games of the year to reach the milestone.
But Buerhle said he wouldn’t want to reach 200 innings that way.
“If I (made a relief appearance) early in the season and we needed it, that might be all right,” he said. “But if it’s the last game of the year and ‘you need a couple of innings, we’re going to bring you in in relief,’ to me you put an asterisk by it. It’s still 200 innings, but …”
Buehrle struck out Jayson Werth looking in the third inning for his 1,500th career strikeout. He’s the 24th active pitcher to reach that milestone.