Fish-Cap: Marlins sweep Nationals with ease

The Marlins completed a much-needed sweep against the Washington Nationals this week despite rain attempting to shut down last night’s game. The team was able to complete it in fairly easy fashion, as none of the three games had a run differential below four runs. Let’s take a look at some of the highlights of the series.

Series Hero: Mike Stanton (0.455 WPA)
Series Goat: No one played poorly enough in this series to really deserve mentioning
Impressed By: Mike Stanton (15 PA, 8 H, 3 2B. 2 HR, 3 BB, 2 K)
Depressed By: Chris Volstad (5 IP, 4 R, 2 K, 1 BB, 2 HR)

Mike Stanton demolishes Nats pitching

Mike Stanton had a field day with Nationals pitching in this series, continuing his month and a half long tear through National League pitching. Gathering eight hits in the series, the majority of them coming in a five-hit affair in the Marlins’ second game of the series, Stanton bumped his season line to .260/.338/.531, a scary strong .374 wOBA. The five-hit game contained no bloop hits or balls which barely squirted past infielders; all of the balls Stanton hit were absolutely smoked.

Here is the home run that Stanton hit that night against Joel Peralta, via Hit Tracker Online:

The home run went an estimated true distance of 433 ft., which would make it the fourth longest true distance homer of the season for the Marlins. The longest of the year? The Hanley Ramirez solo shot from the same game in the second inning off of former Marlin Scott Olsen. That bomb to left center field went an estimated 447 ft. in terms of true distance, an absolute monster of a shot.

Sanchez, Nolasco back on their feet

After bad starts from both Anibal Sanchez and Ricky Nolasco in their previous outings, it was refreshing to see both pitchers striking out batters once more. Sanchez and Nolasco combined for 15 strikeouts and just three walks in 12 2/3 innings pitched, an impressive ratio. Both pitcher were well within the strike zone, as Sanchez was in the generic zone with around 68% of his pitches, while Nolasco was in there about 60% of the time. Both pitchers also induced plenty of whiffs, with 11 from Sanchez and 10 from Nolasco.

The only downside to their starts was the disappointing lack of innings, as neither was able to finish seven innings. Both pitchers left with runners on (1st and 3rd, two outs for Sanchez, 1st and 2nd, no outs for Nolasco), potentially signaling that they were low on gas. Given the leads that they had been handed however, there was of little concern that the bullpen would relinquish the leads. Sanchez left with the Fish up 8-2. while Nolasco was running a shutout up 3-0. In both cases, the Fish had more than an 80% chance of victory according to win expectancy, so their wins were mostly secured. It was good to see solid performances from both starters.