Miami Marlins 2, Cubs 1 (17)

On Friday night in Miami, the Miami Marlins needed five hours and 18 minutes to dispatch the mighty Cubs of Chicago. The 17th inning marked the longest game played in Marlins Park history.

Chicago scored first, on a Kris Bryant solo shot to left field in the top of the third inning. Starlin Castro equalized the score in the bottom of the inning for the Miami Marlins, knocking in Lewis Brinson with a single to left field.

The clubs then went back-and-forth for many hours without a player crossing the plate. Miguel Rojas collected his first career walk-off hit in the bottom of the 17th, scoring Brian Anderson from third base on a single to center field. At times it seemed like the game would never end, then I realized it wasn’t very long at all in relative terms.

12,034 bipartisan fans were on hand to witness the slim victory, which leaves the Fish at .500 in the very-early going.

A few things

• Caleb Smith struck out eight batters, which ranks second for a pitcher making his first appearance with the Marlins.
• Jarlin Garcia gave up one hit and two walks in six relief innings. It was the longest a Marlin has appeared in relief since June 8th, 2013. That’s when Kevin Slowey went seven shutout frames in relief, striking out eight and allowing eight hits.
• A day after going 0-for-5 in his Marlins debut, CF Lewis Brinson went four-for-eight from the plate, to raise his seasons’ average from .000 to .308.
• Chad Wallach continued his rough start, striking out in five of his seven plate appearances. He’s 0-for-10 overall this season.
• Brian Anderson and Starlin Castro accounted for another third of Marlins hits in total. Miami finished with a dozen in total. Chicago hit safely just eight times.

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Heroes and Zeroes

Using the WPA statistic reveals who was most important to the outcome of the game. It’s not the greatest predictive statistic, but it’s very good at telling us the story of who came up big in a given game. The % figure with each player refers to the amount of “wins” that player was responsible for. It’s important to note that the winning club, when you add all the players together, will have a figure of 50%, and the losing club will weigh in at a combined -50%.

Heroes

Eddie Butler 94.7%

The highest single-game figure I’ve ever seen. I guess it’s hypothetically possible to score higher, but Butler pitched seven of the highest leverage innings possible and was mostly solid. He allowed four hits and a walk, while striking out five. Two of the hits led directly to his getting lifted from the game. In the bottom of the seventeenth, after getting Castro and Odrisamer Despaigne out, he allowed consecutive singles to Anderson and Cameron Maybin.

Jarlin Garcia 76.6%

Garcia pitched six shutout innings for the Marlins. It was 4 1/3 innings longer than Garcia’s next-longest career appearance. He set down the first 15 batters he faced before walking Victor Caratini to lead off the 15th. Following that, Kris Bryant collected the only base hit against Garcia, a single. After an intentional walk to load the bases, Garcia got Jason Heyward to ground into an inning-ending double play.

Miguel Rojas 26.9%

Rojas played all 17 innings and had eight plate appearances in total. He drew a two-out walk in the second, flew out to center with one out and a man on first in the fourth, lined out to short with a runner on first to end the sixth frame, and drew a walk to load the bases with two out in the eighth. In the extra frames, he drew another walk with two out in the 10th, grounded out to third base for the second out of the 13th, flew out with a man on first to end the 15th, and singled home Brian Anderson with the game-winner in the bottom of the 17th.

Zeroes

Chad Wallach -38.3%

Wallach struck out in five of his seven plate appearances. He’s now one-for-21 through his professional career, for a .048 batting average.

Brandon Morrow -39.0%

Morrow only faced one batter, but it was the last one. He came on in the bottom of the 17th with two out and runners on first and second. Miguel Rojas laced his 0-1 offering to center field, easily scoring Anderson with the game-winner.

Jason Heyward -43.9%

Wow. Heyward most have done something pretty bad to rank lower than the guy who gave up the game-winning hit…

Heyward was a defensive replacement in right field for the bottom of the ninth inning, and stayed in for the rest of the game. In the 10th, he struck out for the second out of the inning, then did the same thing in the 13th, also for the second out. In the bottom of the 15th, with the bases loaded and one out, Heyward grounded into a game-killing double play. This one play accounts for -35.1% WPA.

Next: Six Marlins Impact Players

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