Three Standouts from Sunday’s Miami Marlins Win Over Nationals

The Miami Marlins have won consecutive games to open their 2020 Spring Training.

In the Miami Marlins first game of the spring, we featured power, bullpen, and Jazz Chisholm as the three standouts in victory. One of those three remains on tap in game two. But first, the almost-heroic:

Honorable Mentions

Reliever Daniel Castano struck out a batter and faced the minimum over two innings of work, a single to Wilmer Difo. Difo was erased one pitch later on a Luis Garcia double-play.

NRI second baseman Christian Lopes was two-for-two in relief, with a run, an RBI, and participation in three double plays in five defensive innings of work.

Matt Kemp, also an NRI, started and went one-for-two from the plate with a second inning single. He also stole second base — something he hasn’t done in a major league game for four years.

Jazz. Again. 

Jazz Chisholm entered the game on Sunday as a defensive replacement in the fifth inning, and immediately made his presence known. With the score knotted at one run each, he fielded a Raudy Read grounder on the first pitch, and cut him down with a strong throw to Lewin Diaz. After a Wilmer Difo single, Chisholm started an inning ending 6-4-3 double play.

In the top of the sixth, before having made a plate appearance, Chisholm served as the pivot on another inning-ending double play, bailing out an un-Vesia-like inning by Alex Vesia. In the bottom of the seventh, Chisholm walked on five pitches and stole second base, his second of the spring. Unfortunately, he was stranded there, but would again figure into the game-solution with solid defense, with an assist to nail former-Marlins JB Shuck on a ground out in the eighth.

With two outs in the bottom of that same inning, Chisholm collected a pair of RBI with a ground-rule double to set the score at 5-2. Jazz assisted on his third double play in five innings of work in the Marlins defensive half of the ninth.

Go North

In his first outing of the spring, non-roster reliever Aaron Northcraft pitched a perfect eighth, striking out Taylor Gushue and Cody Wilson. One of seven pitchers to take the hill for the Marlins on Sunday, Northcraft was the only one to not allow a baserunner.

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Monte’s Coming

Monte Harrison has stated that he wants that center field job from the jump, and he’s going to do everything in his power to nail down the position in time for Opening Day. He’s off to a good start for it.

Like Chisholm, Harrison got into the game in the fifth inning for the Miami Marlins as a defensive replacement. Unlike Chisholm, Harrison only made one defensive play, pinching a line drive for the second out of the seventh off Emilio Bonifacio.

Offensively, Harrison collected a one-out single in the sixth inning, but was soon afterward thrown out trying to steal. Nonplussed, he later stole second base in the eighth after singling home Lewis Brinson with the game-tying run. Harrison then scored the eventual game-winer on a Christian Lopes double later in the frame.