How Bad are the Miami Marlins?

Miami Marlins pitching imploded in Philadelphia earlier today. Dillon Peters surrendered nine earned runs in just 2 2/3 innings, including two grand slams.

Jacob Turner, Miami Marlins reliever, surrendered eight more on six hits and three walks in just one inning.

Can it get any worse than this for Miami? History shows that it cannot. But it’s been close. More on that later.

This was the worst loss of the Marlins era. That’s without the Florida/Miami Marlins qualifier.

It started out promisingly. Derek Dietrich, leading off for the first time after batting second for the first week of the season, stroked a single to open the game in the first. After advancing to second on a Lewis Brinson groundout, he scored on a wild pitch and a scoring error (see below).

After that comforting moment, and Miami’s first lead this season against the Phillies, things sorta fell apart.

Peters retired eight Philadelphia batters, and allowed 12 baserunners. He gave up nine hits and three walks, getting 52-of-84 pitches in the strike zone and closing the books with a -4 GameScore. In four road starts to begin his major league career, he’s 0-2 with a 13.22 ERA and a 2.633 WHIP. That’s incredibly, aggressively, unsustainably bad. All that to say this – he can only get better.

Jacob Turner had a lot to live up to, but somehow, he managed to file an even worse stat line than had Peters. Turner retired only three batters (all on strikeouts), but allowed eight earned runs on six hits and three walks. Turner managed this on only 46 pitches, 25 over the plate.

Chris O’Grady turned in a fine performance in a very low leverage situation, striking out three in 1 1/3 perfect innings. Then the Phillies took advantage of Tayron Guerrero.

Guerrero came into tonight’s game with eight whiffs in just 4 1/3 innings, although he has allowed three earned runs. In the inning he pitched tonight, he allowed two more, on four hits. He did strike out a batter. Junichi Tazawa followed him by allowing another run, in the seventh. He struck out two.

Bryan Holaday, Miami’s backup catcher, came in to pitch the eighth. He worked a eight-pitch inning, striking out Rhys Hoskins on a 62 MPH off-speed pitch (his fastball was 73). It was a nice moment near the end of a terrible game. Braxton Lee got his first career hit, an infield single, a few moments later.

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Miami’s previous worst ever game was an 18-0 loss to the Atlanta Braves, on October 3rd, 1999. It was the final game of a 64-98 season for the Marlins. Cliff Floyd led Miami’s offense with two singles, accounting for 40% of the Marlins output. Dennis Springer (seven earned runs), Reid Cornelius (two), Michael Tejera (six), and Brent Billingsley (three) combined to give Miami a day to live in infamy, until now.

Next: Takeaways from a Cold Day

This is shaping up to be one of the more memorable Marlins seasons, for all the wrong reasons. Trevor Richards gets a shot at Jake Arrieta tomorrow early in the afternoon. Between now and then, give me a follow on Twitter @MarlinManiac, and like us on Facebook. Keep us bookmarked here at Marlin Maniac for all your Marlins news.