Miami Marlins Continue to Flounder in Home Loss to Phillies

The Miami Marlins welcomed J.T. Realmuto and the Philadelphia Phillies to Marlins Park on Saturday, with 9,322 on hand.

The Miami Marlins had a hard time hitting Jake Arrieta, collecting five hits over the former Cy Young Award winner’s seven inning start. Just-called-up Austin Dean collected the only RBI of the game for the Marlins, with a seventh-inning sacrifice fly. Here’s a few other things we noticed.

Kinley Continues to Impress

Tyler Kinley made his seventh appearance of the season, and has only surrendered four hits and a walk, along with eight strikeouts over 7 2/3 innings. In today’s outing, he pitched a perfect ninth in an otherwise forgettable day for Miami Marlins pitching.

Remember, Kinley was chosen by the Minnesota Twins in the 2017 rule 5 draft and lost to the Marlins for the start of the 2018 campaign. After allowing nine earned runs in only 3 1/3 innings, the Twins sent him back to the Marlins.

After rejoining Miami, Kinley allowed six earned runs in 7 2/3 innings. Since the start of this campaign, he’s proved much better. Kinley, along with Nick Anderson and Tayron Guerrero have proved pleasantly above average parts of the mostly underwhelming Miami Marlins bullpen.

Alfaro is All or Nothing

Jorge Alfaro is hitting .286 after missing most of Spring Training after an unfortunate collision with a handrail in the dugout. He’s 10 for his first 35 with the Fish, with a team-leading three home runs and six RBI. Alfaro also ranks second on the team with 15 strikeouts. He has drawn zero walks. Alfaro has a 4.24 percent career walk rate, and a 35.42 percent strikeout rate. It’s no surprise at all that Alfaro will likely not collect more than 15 walks over the entire 2019 campaign.

In today’s contest, Alfaro was the only player in the Miami Marlins lineup to finish with multiple hits. He collected a pair of singles and struck out in his other two plate appearances.

Miami Marlins Continue to Struggle at the Plate

Going back a few days now, Lewis Brinson has struck out eight of his last nine plate appearances. In fact, the entire team has gone 17-for-116 over the last four games, a collective batting average of just .147. The club called up Austin Dean in an attempt to juice the lineup a little, sending Peter O’Brien down to the New Orleans Baby Cakes.

O’Brien had gone just three-for-27 in nine games with the Marlins, with 14 strikeouts in 30 plate appearances. By contrast, Dean had hit .375 at the triple-A level with New Orleans, going nine-for-24 with five walks and only three strikeouts. In today’s game, Dean was 0-for-2 with the sac fly and a strikeout.

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Alcantara Underwhelms in Third Start

Sandy Alcantara opened the season with a bang, striking out six over eight shutout four-hit innings in a win over the Colorado Rockies. In his second start, he lasted only half as long and walked five while allowing two runs.

In tonight’s start, Alcantara’s downward trajectory continued, with two walks and 11 hits allowed in only five innings. He also struck out six batters, but his effort resulted in a Miami Marlins season-worst tying 25 GameScore, along with José Ureña‘s season-opening effort.

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