Miami Marlins Game Recap: Haren, Ozuna Lift Fish Over Champs

2. 40. 7. 82. Final

The Miami Marlins started a seven-day West Coast swing today by beating the defending World Champion San Francisco Giants 7-2 on Thursday night. This behind a good start from California native Dan Haren and Marcell Ozuna’s first home run of the season.

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Dan Haren was excellent both on the mound and at the plate, helping out his own cause with a 2-run double in the second inning. Haren also looked impressive on the mound giving up 8 hits and allowing 2 ER. At this point in his career, and as his twitter handle implies, he can’t throw much more than 88 so it’s hard to expect him to fool many hitters and miss a lot of bats.

Three strikeouts seem as many as he will get, especially against a team that likes to put the ball in play like the Giants.

Marcell Ozuna also hit his first home run of the season a two run shot in the seventh inning to give the Marlins a 6-0 lead. Ozuna has had a weird year so far in 2015, although he has improved his on base percentage, he has a peculiar drop off in his slugging percentage, which stood at only .362 entering today’s game.

Much of Ozuna’s improvement has been linked to another outrageously high BABIP of .409 for the season. Ozuna’s power tool has always been the most intriguing part of this game and that hadn’t shown up so far in 2015. It is fair to expect that he will start getting better results as the process hasn’t substantially changed compared to next year.

Dee Gordon has also been massive to the Marlins success in 2015. He went 3-for-5 on Thursday with an RBI.

His slash line is now .437/.461/.521 with a .491 BABIP. To say that’s unsustainable is an understatement.

Although Gordon will stay an integral part of the Marlins success he isn’t going to look like Tris Speaker for much longer.

Three Key Players

Dan Haren – 0.22 WPA – Most of which came in his second inning two run double that gave the Marlins their first lead and they never looked back.

Dee Gordon- 0.06 WPA – Mostly from his double in the second inning that drove in Dan Haren and extended the lead to 3-0.

Giancarlo Stanton– 0.04 WPA – From the sacrifice fly that drove in Dan Haren and brought the game to 4-0.

WPA statistics are particularly interesting in close games and especially in ones where relief pitchers come into high leverage situations. More often than not in a game like that said relievers usually has the most WPA.

The Marlins are now 2-2 on the road trip, with six more games to go against two very good teams. I would be looking for at least a split at AT&T and hopefully to avoid a sweep at Chavez Ravine. An ideal road trip for the Miami Marlins would give them a 5-5 mark.

Next: Giants-Marlins Series Preview

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