Last Night's Game

Normally when the Marlins play a game like the one last night, I say nothing and just move on.  But cruising the web and reading the various recaps and comments, I want to say something.

First we start out with Mike Berardino's take, he has it right.

Two broken-bat flares that fell in for singles. Two groundballs that failed to produce the desired result.

This was Kevin Gregg's nightmare ninth inning.

"I was making my pitches," Gregg, the Marlins' embattled closer, said after Tuesday's10-9 loss to the Braves. "I broke some bats. The ball needs to roll your way sometimes."

Yes, this will go down as the eighth blown save of the year for Gregg. That four-run ninth against an out-of-contention club, a shell of its former juggernaut, may be the most painful yet for a flagging team that has already lost 14 times in August.

Broken bat singles happen and there is really nothing that can be done about them.  Unfortunately, they happened at a very inopportune time.  And granted, Gregg was not as sharp when he came out for the ninth inning as he was in the eighth.

But the loss was far from his fault alone.

Take shortstop Hanley Ramirez, for instance.

He made two key miscues in the ninth that kept the Braves' winning rally alive.

The most glaring was his failure to turn a routine double play on Gregor Blanco's one-out grounder. Second baseman Dan Uggla made a solid feed, but the ball appeared to get stuck in Ramirez's glove as he was unable to make so much as a throw to first.

I don't know how many times Hanley Ramirez has double, tripled or quadrupled clutched on throws this season.  But it is too many to count.

He either needs to use a different style of glove, or someone needs to help him  correct this flaw, or he needs to find a new position where his double, triple or quadruple clutching doesn't cost the team runs.

Then there was Dan Uggla.  What the heck was he doing cheating over towards second on the last play of the game?  Baker was behind the plate and there was no way on this planet he was going to make a throw.  That isn't Baker's forte.  And even if it was, the winning run was on third and the runner stealing second didn't matter.

Sure Gregg got himself into trouble, but at end of the game he induced the ground balls he needed to get out of the jam and hold on for the win.  Sadly, the players behind him didn't do their job.

That's my take, yours may vary.