Miami Marlins Morning Catch: Fish sweep Nationals

Good morning, Marlin Maniac readers and welcome to Morning Catch, the daily morning news and notes column from MarlinManiac.com.

Heroes And Zeroes: Marlins 6, Nationals 2

Kevin Kraczkowski, Fish Stripes

More from Marlins News

• Miami Marlins news: Another target gone
• Why didn’t the Miami Marlins sign JDM?
• Miami Marlins rejected Boston‘s trade offer
• Miami Marlins are pursuing Michael Conforto
• Miami Marlins need to spend to win

Heroes and Zeroes is a series of articles which focus on the players who had the most impact at the plate and on the mound. I used the Wins Probability Added (WPA) chart at www.fangraphs.com to help sort out the details.

Heroes

Adeiny Hechavarria (MIA) .326

Hechavarria, batting eighth, led off the third with a groundout to Gio Gonzalez (-2.7%), but more than made up for it with a two-out, bases loaded triple in the fourth inning which made a one run deficit into a two run lead (+34.5%). It also included the eventual game winning RBI. He singled to left with a man on first and nobody out in the sixth (+0.8%), and struck out swinging on three pitches from Drew Storen for the second out of the eighth (-0.1%). Click here for full article.

Miami Marlins displaying outstanding defense

Barry Jackson, Miami Herald

Throughout the first 21 days of this roller-coaster Marlins season, this has been a constant: exemplary defense.

After another error-less game Sunday, the Marlins own the best fielding percentage in baseball and have the fewest errors (five). No other National League team entered Sunday with fewer than nine errors.

Of the Marlins’ five errors, two were committed by catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia, one by right fielder Giancarlo Stanton and one each by shortstop Adeiny Hechavarria (on a questionable call) and second baseman Dee Gordon. Click here for full article.

Miami Marlins stay hot, sweep Washington Nationals

Travis Honeycutt, Marlin Maniac

The Marlins hustled out three triples, Adeiny Hechavarria had another huge day at the plate and Dan Haren was sharp in Sunday’s 6-2 win to sweep the Nationals right out of Marlins Park.

Baseball season is long and weird and full of varying spells during which teams look vastly different from what they looked like the week before. The Miami Marlins are currently enjoying one such spell, and a very positive one, in which they’ve now won five straight and are hitting. The first two weeks of the season, the Marlins couldn’t score runs, the starters weren’t getting deep into games and the bullpen looked like a shell of last year’s counterpart. Now, it’s all clicking, and the Fish have put together a nice little winning streak, including a clean three-game sweep over the preseason National League East favorites. Click here for full article.

Follow Marlin Maniac on Twitter @MarlinManiac for all your Miami Marlins news, opinion and analysis!

Next: Can't we all get along?