Fish Wrap: Marlins 0, Phillies 1

As every home ball club did, on this date, the Marlins had a fireworks spectacular. And no, I'm not talking about the post-game 4th of July celebration. Now, before you start thinking the bats were exploding and runs galore were being scored, that didn't happen either. The starting pitchers saw to that.

Both starting pitchers, Ricky Nolasco, for the Marlins, and Vance Worley, for the Phillies, ruled the day for most of the game. Ricky and Worley started out recording six scoreless innings each and then as far as scoring goes something happened in the seventh. But before we get to that let's check-in on things in fifth.

With one out John Buck walked to put a runner on first in a scoreless game. Ricky then bunted him over to second for out number two which brought up the top of the order. Emilio Bonifacio hit a slow grounder to first which Ryan Howard fielded and tossed the ball to Worley.  Worley being a little slow off the mound couldn't beat Boni to the bag so he tried an angle to tag him. All Worley tagged was air. However, that didn't keep first umpire, Vic Carapazza, from calling him out. Boni argued. Perry Hill argued. Jack argued. But since the ump missed the call and he was being shown up someone had to go, so Boni was ejected.

Let's move ahead to seventh where the so called "scoring" took place. Domonic Brown hit an infield single to second to leadoff the Phillies half of the inning. Brian Schneider followed with a walk to move Brown into scoring position. Michael Martinez followed with a single to center where Brian Petersen collected the hit and came up throwing. And fine a throw it was, it beat Brown to the plate and Buck tagged him before he ever touched the plate. So naturally, home-plate umpire, Kerwin Danley called him safe. The Marlins argued that call too. Ricky retired the next three batters in order. Score: Marlins 0, Phillies 1.

Both bullpens came on in relief to pitch scoreless eighth and ninth innings to close out the game. But that doesn't mean it just your same old closing out. In the ninth, home-plate umpire Danley interjected himself back into the game when he tossed Buck for arguing balls and strikes. Buck was talking to Danley from his crouch facing the pitcher which is pretty standard way to discuss things without showing up the ump. And by doing so, a catcher is almost never tossed from a game. The key word in previous sentence is "almost". Because Danley sure made a scene when he threw Buck out of the game. Afterwords, Buck took exception to Danley breaking the unwritten rule between catchers and umps and made it known. It was just that kind of night.

Try it again tomorrow.