Source: FanGraphs
Attendance: 21,094
Hero of the Game: Jose Fernandez (0.441 WPA)
Goat of the Game: Jeff Mathis (-0.183 WPA)
Play of the Game: Christian Yelich singled to right field in the 10th inning. Jake Marisnick scored. (+0.286 WPA)
The Miami Marlins faced off against soft-tossing lefty Bruce Chen, and the exact results that you would expect were seen. Chen baffled the Fish en route to six strikeouts and three walks with just three hits allowed. The Marlins never threatened Chen during his seven innings of work; the team only advanced one runner to second base while Chen was pitching. He suppressed an easily suppressible Marlins offense, further proving that point.
But thankfully for the Fish, they had Jose Fernandez. Fernandez continues to pile on numbers, as tonight he struck out six batters in seven innings while walking just one and giving up three hits. He induced nine whiffs in 94 pitches and was once again averaging over 96 mph on his fastball. As usual, Fernandez was fantastic, and the Marlins needed every bit of help from his stellar shutout performance.
The Fish finally got to the Royals and their bullpen, and they did so with their rookie hitters, but it took extra innings to do it. Jake Marisnick fell down 0-2 in his leadoff appearance in the 10th inning against Kelvin Herrera. He then stole second base, one of three Marlins steals in tonight's game. After Jeff Mathis struck out for the third time in the evening, Christian Yelich stepped up to the plate. Yelich had already recorded two singles and a steal in the game, but he capped things off with a ground ball single through the hole between the first and second basemen, allowing the speedy Marisnick to score.
Steve Cishek and the Marlins held on for the save and win, taking the extra-innings affair 1-0.