Miami Marlins Tag Seven on deGrom, Defeat New York Mets 8-6

Losers of seven straight coming into tonight’s matchup with the New York Mets, Don Mattingly knew something had to change.

Over the seven game losing streak, the Miami Marlins had collected exactly eight runs while allowing 32. In tonight’s victory, they also collected eight runs to move the dial from an MLB-worst 2.56 runs per game to a still-MLB-worst 2.69. The next worst-team in the simple runs-scored metric, the Detroit Tigers, have racked up 145 in 43 contests, a 3.37 run per game-clip. In addition, the Marlins had totaled a grand total of one home run in May, a Jon Berti shot on May 6th against the Chicago Cubs.

Mattingly had expected a “challenging” season, and that’s just what he got. What he couldn’t have foreseen, however, was the sheer magnitude of the Miami Marlins (lack of) talent. Our own David Levin noted as much in his article earlier today:

"Failure was expected once Jeter and Bruce Sherman bought the franchise from Jeffrey Loria. But to a man, the belief coming out of Spring Training was the Marlins would be better than anticipated. Guess what? That has not happened."

What Happened Tonight?

Jacob deGrom had strung together 26 straight Quality Starts in a row, ending with a 14 strikeout performance against the Miami Marlins on April 3rd. Since then, he’s had three non-quality starts in his past seven games. Tonight, he racked up a mark of 28 using Tom Tango’s GameScore 2.0 formula. deGrom put 73-of-104 over the dish and didn’t walk any Miami Marlins, but he did surrender seven runs on nine hits over five innings. Only one of those runs were counted as unearned.

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By contrast, just-turned-26 Miami Marlins starter Trevor Richards did turn in a QS despite a 43 GameScore, courtesy of a pair of round trippers allowed. Four of Trevor’s first five starts were QS’s, but he hasn’t earned one since April 21st. In today’s dustup, Richards took home his first win of the season against five losses, allowing three runs on six hits and three walks over 6 1/3 innings. He placed 55-of-88 offerings between the wickets and struck out four batters.

Offensively, Jorge Alfaro went deep with his sixth tater of the 2019 campaign. After a rough start that included a pair of rehab stints, Garrett Cooper collected a pair of base hits and two RBI. Cooper had started the season 0-for-14, but now has strung together a pair of multi-hit games to raise his average to the Mendoza line. Brian Anderson added a pair of doubles and an RBI to the winning effort.

The Marlins will try for a rare winning-streak tomorrow at 4:10PM EDT against these same Mets. Pablo Lopez (2-5, 5.93) will take on Steven Matz (3-2, 3.86).