3 Reasons the Marlins Lost the Series to the Nationals

Marlins reliever Mike Dunn struggled Wednesday, surrendering 2 earned runs and not acquiring an out. Mandatory Credit: Howard Smith-USA TODAY Sports

Bullpen Woes:

It isn’t that the Marlins bullpen is all that bad, Out of the 3 to 4 innings that they will throw in a night, they generally get the job done, with maybe one bad inning. The issue is that the bad inning comes at a terrible time and Miami is unable to recover from it.

Case in point: The Marlins opening game of the series saw Brad Hand really struggle, which is going to happen from time to time. After falling behind 5-1 in the third inning, Miami got a boost from Garrett Jones‘ first home run of the season to cut the lead to three runs. You could feel the momentum start to shift. The next half of the inning is when the game was put out of reach courtesy of 4 Nationals runs allowed by Kevin Slowey (who had pitched well up until that point).

Or you can take a look at the rubber game of the series last night. After a 3-run home run by Derek Dietrich and a 3-run home run by Jayson Werth, it was an even game going into the 7th inning. Mike Dunn (who has been alarmingly bad lately) promptly gives up a go-ahead home run to Zach Walters (who?!?!) on the second pitch of the inning, and it was a horrible pitch. The Nationals would go on to score 3 more runs that inning.

All told, Miami’s bullpen gave up 9 runs in 6 innings pitched during the series. That is just not going to win ball games.