The Good, The Great, and The Just Plain Weird Marlin Recap: Miami Marlins vs San Francisco Giants 8/18/13

When you score 14 runs in two games but the opponent scores 20 what do you do in the third game? Welcome to this week’s edition of The Good, The Great, and The Just Plain Weird Marlin recap. Here’s the brief summery on how the Marlins answered that question– The Good: we won; The Great: we scored more runs than the Giants; The Just Plain Weird: …..read the full recap to get this one.

The Good

The Marlins won today preventing the Giants from sweeping us, which is always good. With four lead changes throughout the game, this was a very close matchup; which leads me to….

The Great

…the score. The Marlins won 6-5. I know, this seems similar to The Good section, but it’s not. The Marlins in the 1st game scored 10 runs, but the Giants scored 14. In the second game Marlins scored four and the Giants scored six. While these are very good numbers for the offense, these are very bad numbers for the defense. Today The offense produced the hits and runs we needed, while the defense held their own when they needed to. We had clutch hitting from Adeiny Hechavarria in the bottom of the 4th to give us the lead, and Jeff Mathis in the 8th to reclaim that lead and never let it go. The defense played their part too, with two double plays, Ryan Webb coming in in the 6th with two on and no outs and he sits down all three batters, and Giancarlo Stanton making an amazing play in right field to keep the tying run at first. This game was well balanced, but at the same time…

Aug 18, 2013; Miami, FL, USA; Miami Marlins center fielder Justin Ruggiano (right) makes a catch as shortstop Adeiny Hechavarria (left) reaches for the play during the ninth inning against the San Francisco Giants at Marlins Park. Mandatory Credit: Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports

…The Just Plain Weird

Where do I begin? I’m not saying this game was sloppy, there were just several plays that I’ve either never seen happen or don’t see happen very often. For example,Justin Ruggiano reaching base because Hector Sanchez stuck his glove out too far and Ruggi hit it- catcher interference. This was followed by a single and then Ruggi being tagged out in between second and third on a botch double steal or bad hit and run. Ruggi’s weirdness doesn’t end there. In the fifth inning, Ruggi was walked to second because of a wild pitch and Donovan Solano scoring from second because of said wild pitch. I need to stop picking on Ruggi, because he wasn’t the only one with a weird play this game. Mathis had a beautiful double that gave us the lead in the 8th (that we never relinquished) but he tried to stretch it to a triple and was out by a good 6 feet. Just a couple of really weird plays.

Next up for the Marlins are the Los Angeles Dodgers. Let’s use this victory to give us momentum to take this series against another NL West team. Until next time, let’s go Marlins!