ATLANTA -- Jakob Marsee doesn’t look like he’s only spent nine days in the Majors.
The 24-year-old rookie is making big league baseball look basic, and Saturday night at Truist Park, he added another spectacle to his slew of special performances to begin his career.
Marsee went 2-for-2 with an RBI double in the Marlins’ 8-6 loss to Atlanta, marking their second loss of the day after falling 7-1 earlier in the afternoon. The outfielder also walked twice and swiped three bags.
His pair of hits moved his career batting average to .448 (13-for-29).
The turn of the month marked a particularly new beginning for Marsee, whose contract was selected from Triple-A Jacksonville on Aug. 1.
Since then, he’s done nothing but produce.
Marsee’s Marlins tenure began in perhaps the most pressure-packed game of the team’s season -- a 13-12 barnburner against the New York Yankees. What’s more, loanDepot park was packed with people -- 32,299 to be exact -- in a three-game series that smashed the ballpark’s series attendance record.
That series just so happened to be Marsee’s first.
And in Marsee's first game, he walked three times, scored two runs and collected his first career hit, a double. His walks total alone set a Marlins record for a rookie debut, and that combined with his double made him the first player since 1924 to double and walk thrice in his MLB debut.
Then, in the Marlins’ next series against the Astros, Marsee clubbed his first career homer 409 feet over the right-center-field wall. The same day, he flashed his elite speed (28.5 feet per second, ranking in the 95th percentile) by racing down a would-be gapper from Mauricio Dubón, adding to his briskly growing collection of web gems in center.
In Game 2 on Saturday, this time in left, Marsee added yet another notch to his defensive highlight reel, ranging back to the wall in left-center field to pull in a leaping grab that robbed Michael Harris II of extra bases.
“I think I like making a play on defense more than I like doing so on offense,” Marsee smiled postgame. “Just because our pitchers' jobs are hard enough, so [I just want to] make it easier on them any way I can.
“I work on it a lot. I get a lot of reads out there, and it’s been my goal to be up here and play, and help out, do anything I can [to help].”
Defense and baserunning are just pluses for a player whose plate production has been top-level thus far.
The man who led Triple-A in stolen bags (47) prior to his MLB debut is now leading his squad in walk percent (20.7), isolated power (.391), batting average on balls in play (.563) and hard-hit percentage (52.9).
Marsee has now hit safely in all but one of his career games (nine of 10), while his 15 times on base through his first seven games were tied for the most in club history (Kevin Millar, 1998-99).
“He’s running high-quality at-bats,” Marlins manager Clayton McCullough said postgame.
“He’s using the whole field, and as he’s settled in now, I think we’re seeing what he’s capable of on the bases.”
When asked what the main ingredient behind Marsee’s early adaptation has been, McCullough pointed to his mind.
“The calmness in the box,” he said. “... He’s really looked over the ball well. … I think just for a young player coming up, to show the type of calmness and strike-zone discipline that he has in the early going is a very good sign.
“We’ve seen him defensively in center field make some really nice plays. … We’re going to see him on the bases have an impact as well. He’s come up and he’s fit right in, and he’s played aggressively. I think it speaks to the preparation he had before he came up here, and then also to the confidence he has in his abilities that he can do things on both sides here to help us win.”
Marsee -- who’s been aided by a traveling pack of family members, friends and his girlfriend along his early MLB journey -- has envisioned this kind of success for some time.
“I picture myself in a lot of these moments,” he said. “It just gives me confidence going into these moments, and then just having the guys around me has helped a lot. [I’m] really just playing to win, not trying to be anything other than myself.”
So far, that’s working out just swell.