San Francisco Giants Outslug Miami Marlins in Wild Friday Night in Miami, 14-10

Aug 16, 2013; Miami, FL, USA; Miami Marlins center fielder Justin Ruggiano (right) greets third base coach Joe Espada (left) after hitting a solo home run during the ninth inning against the San Francisco Giants at Marlins Park. Mandatory Credit: Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports

The Marlins put on an offensive show against the usually good San Francisco pitching by scoring 10 runs for the first time since the Cleveland game a few weeks ago. Usually this means an automatic victory for the Marlins because of their excellent and consistent pitching performances.

The key word here though is usually.

Yes, on a night of a good offensive showing, the Marlins pitching was unusually poor. Nathan Eovaldi entered the game with the second lowest ERA on the Marlins starting rotation. In fact, in every start since the All Star Break, Eovaldi hasn’t received any kind of run support while usually performing at a very high level. In his last start, he gave up only one hit before being removed from the game in the seventh. So with that kind of streak Eovaldi was on, we could only expect good things from him.

Well it didn’t go exactly as planned. Especially in the first two innings.

Eovaldi gave up seven runs (five earned) against a supposedly weak Giants lineup to the put the Marlins in a major hole to begin the game. I mean, the weird thing was Eovaldi wasn’t entirely terrible in the first couple of innings but he has shown more and more that he needs to develop his off-speed pitches when the season ends.

For the first two bottom half innings, the Marlins couldn’t do anything offensively. It looked this game was over before it even started.

Then the third inning came.

Eovaldi had a quick inning and after a Jeff Mathis strikeout, Eovaldi got a single and Yelich crushed a double to right center field. With men on second and third, Donovan Solano popped a little bloop single to right field that scored Eovaldi. After a Stanton strikeout, Logan Morrison doubled to deep right center to score both Yelich and Solano. Placido Polanco singled to bring Lomo home. Adeiny Hechavarria singled and Marisnick walked to load the bases for Jeff Mathis. For being one of our worst hitters, Jeff Mathis has been at the plate 12 times when the bases our loaded for the Marlins. He has two hits in those situations, one being a game winning Grand Slam. Could there be a repeat performance?

Of course not, its Jeff Mathis. He popped out to the catcher in foul territory. What a surprise.

But no matter, its 7-4 and the game is only in the third inning. The Marlins are back in the game, as long as Eovaldi doesn’t run it for us.

Well, he gives up five frickin runs in the next inning. Come on. The one time the Marlins are giving him honest to god run support and he goes out and screws it up. Ryan Webb had to finish the inning, ending Eovaldi’s terrible night. His ERA jumped from 2.86 to 3.96. He’ll get e’m next though.

Anyways with the score 12-4, Manager Mike Redmond tried something different with his lineup. He decided to double switch Justin Ruggiano with Jake Marisnick and in the fourth inning Ruggiano really got out of his slump. He smacked his first Home Run in Marlins Park this year. This shot kept the team in the game even though it was the only run produced by the Marlins.

The next inning Ruggiano hit a two run double with the bases loaded, Yelich got an RBI single, and Donovan Solano got an infield hit to get another hit with runners in scoring position. With the score 12-9 and runners in scoring position with no outs, the Marlins were primed to tie the game with Stanton, Morrison, and Polanco coming up to bat. However all of them failed to even make any type of good contact so a big opportunity was wasted.

Honestly, the rest of the game for the Marlins was just wasted opportunities. The Giants would score two more times and that was it for the Marlins. Ruggiano kept things interesting in the ninth when he hit his second home run of the evening but in the end the Marlins could not take advantage of its chances and their pitchers failed to keep the game at low level.

The Final score was 14-10 Giants.

While the Marlins lost, there were a lot of silver linings. The Marlins 16 hits with Yelich and Solano having three hits each. Ruggiano was crushing the ball all game long and is showing how to break out of a slump (he should really talk to Stanton). Arquimedes Caminero made his major league debut and showed the tools that have many officials thinking he could be a future closer. One interesting fact was that this was the highest scoring game in Marlins Park history, with the other one being against the Giants last year on May 24, 2012.

While a tough loss, the Marlins showed some good offensive potential which they should build off of in the next few games. The future is bright in Miami and as long as all the pieces come together, the Marlins will be contenders in the future.

The next game features Matt Cain and the San Francisco Giants vs. Henderson Alvarez and the Miami Marlins in the second game of a three game set.

Lets Go Marlins!