Miami Marlins: Early Hope, Late Choke

Earlier this month, the Miami Marlins finally broke the Washington Nationals 14-game winning streak in head to head competition. Last night started out promising, but the Nats chipped away and in the end, went back to their hotel with a 10-3 victory.

Game Story

The Marlins scored three runs in the first inning against Washington starter Tommy Milone. Starlin Castro and Brian Anderson set the table by leading off the bottom of the first with consecutive singles. J.T. Realmuto opened the scoring by lining a 1-2 pitch into left field for an RBI-double, scoring Castro. Justin Bour followed with a sacrifice fly to score Anderson, and Cameron Maybin scored Realmuto with a two-out RBI-single.

MIAMI, FL – JULY 26: Dan Straily #58 of the Miami Marlins pitches in the first inning against the Washington Nationals at Marlins Park on July 26, 2018 in Miami, Florida. (Photo by Mark Brown/Getty Images)

Miami’s starter, Dan Straily, started the game with three scoreless innings. In the fourth, he allowed a pair of solo home runs to Trea Turner (13) and Juan Soto (12). The Nats tied it up against Straily in the sixth, and he was pulled just one out short of his sixth consecutive Quality Start. Ryan Zimmerman ended Straily’s night with an RBI-double to score Adam Eaton.

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— Did the Marlins win? (@MiamiMarlinsWin) July 27, 2018

In the seventh, Washington touched Adam Conley for three runs to really put a damper on Miami’s hopes. Ben Meyer gave up four runs in the ninth, putting the over in kill.

Pitching

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Straily allowed three earned runs on five hits and three walks. Don Mattingly pulled him after 5 2/3 innings, as I said just one out short of another Quality Start. Straily struck out six, earned a 43 GameScore, and put 60-of-99 pitches in the strike zone.
Brad Ziegler came in to bail Straily out of trouble in the sixth. With runners on first and second, he walked Mark Reynolds to load the bases on four pitches. Ziegler then got Matt Wieters to ground out to end the inning.
Conley, who has been the focus of many trade rumors over the past few days, allowed three runs on three hits and a walk, retiring only one batter.
Javy Guerra has been pretty good in a limited role since getting called up to the Miami Marlins. Last night, he stopped the bleeding when he relieved Conley, inducing Zimmerman into a groundout before issuing an intentional walk to Soto and an unintentional walk to Reynolds. He escaped by getting Wieters to ground out to the right side.
After Guerra allowed a two-out double to Daniel Murphy in the eighth, Elieser Hernandez came in for one pitch. He got Turner to groundout.
Meyer allowed four runs in the ninth, on four hits, two walks, and a hit batsman. The inning took Meyer 33 pitches and nine batters to get through. His ERA has now bloated to 8.22.

Hitting

Realmuto led the Miami Marlins offense with two doubles and a single, pushing his average to an NL-eighth-best .310 for the season. His slugging percentage of .539 (and rising) is 88 points higher than last-seasons previous career high, and higher this season than Matt Kemp or Freddie Freeman.

Castro was two-for-four for his 34th multi-hit game of the season.
Cameron Maybin has been on a tear since July 8th, going 15-for-38 over 13 games. Last night, he went two for four with an RBI.
Straily tried to help himself, by going one-for-two from the plate.

Later

The Miami Marlins will try again tonight at 7:10PM. Pablo Lopez (2-1, 5.09 ERA) will take on two-time defending NL Cy Young Award winner Max Scherzer (13-5, 2.43 ERA)

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