Miami Marlins Show Fight in Loss to New York Mets

With 5,934 on hand at Marlins Park Tuesday night, the Miami Marlins dropped a 6-5 decision to the New York Mets.

Miami Marlins starter José Ureña spotted the Mets an early five-run first-inning lead before the home team even got their turn at the plate, and the Marlins spent the next nine innings doing almost (but not quite) enough to come back.

Ureña’s resultant 31 GameScore was only slightly better than his terrible season-opening mark of 25. He’s now sporting a 10.98 ERA and a 2.423 WHIP after 8 2/3 innings of work, clearly the worst performance of the five-man Miami Marlins starting rotation.

Here’s a few other things that we were paying attention to.

Miami Marlins Hit Parade

Despite dropping the contest by a final score of 6-5, the Miami Marlins outhit the New York Mets by a 16-to-9 count. As you would expect, the Marlins left 14 men on base in total, and were successful in bringing only four-of-18 home from scoring position. They failed to bring home even a quarter of the baserunners from second or third base, despite getting at least one player to second base in every inning. That’s the glum side of things.

On the bright side, four Marlins collected multiple hits in the game, including two of them who hit safely three times. Lewis Brinson (three-for-four, one RBI) boosted his average to a respectable .273, and didn’t strike out in today’s game, while Starlin Castro (three-for-five) hit a home run in his second consecutive game. Castro is now hitting .333.

Brian Anderson (two-for-five, one RBI), had started out the season going two-for-21 preceding his bat awakening against the Mets tonight. Martin Prado was two-for-two, and is now seven-for-15 in the early going. Also collecting hits for the Miami Marlins were Miguel Rojas (one-for-six), Curtis Granderson (one-for-four, one walk, two runs), JT Riddle (one-for-two, one run, one RBI), Peter O’Brien (one-for-five, one RBI, three strikeouts), Neil Walker (one-for-two), and Chad Wallach (one-for-one).

Wei-Yin Chen’s Act Two

Wei-Yin Chen‘s fall from grace has been well documented already. The short version is that he is the highest paid Miami Marlins player, drawing $20 million this season and $22 million next. All that, and he’s no longer a viable starting pitcher.

The Miami Marlins moved Chen to the bullpen, and in his first appearance gave up a walk and a double without recording an out. In today’s game, he pitched two innings, and did allow one earned run on two hits and two walks. He also struck out two.

This was hardly a Cy Young caliber outing for Chen, but his results were a step in the right direction. Hopefully he can build on this and take the same path that Adam Conley did last season in his move from the rotation to the bullpen.

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O’Brien’s Struggles

Peter O’Brien was called up three games ago to replace injured Garrett Cooper, and has now gone one-for-12 with seven strikeouts. He finally collected his first base hit of the season in today’s game to go with three strikeouts. A second sure-hit was drilled right at Mets shortstop Amed Rosario for the first out of the ninth inning.

The Miami Marlins hope to rescue one-of-three against the Mets in the series closer tomorrow. They’ll have their work cut out for them, as they’ll be sending promising second-year starter Trevor Richards up against reigning National League Cy Young Award winner Jacob deGrom.

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