The Marlins' post-All Star offensive explosion continued Sunday Afternoon at Sun Life Stadium as the Marlins and Nationals played the rubber match of the series.
Alex Sanabia was making his second start for the Marlins, and tossed 5 1/3 shutout innings, allowing four hits and striking out five. Alex had to pitch out of some trouble in the third when he loaded the bases with one out, but he managed to come out of the situation unscathed, and was in line for the win after five innings.
Meanwhile, the Marlins lineup had to contend with Nationals starter Craig Stammen, who forgot that he typically enjoys giving up many much runs to the opposition, and instead traded zeroes with Sanabia through four innings.
The Fish finally broke through against Stammen in the bottom of the fifth to provide the necessary run support for the rookie. (We use the terms "broke through" and "run support" rather loosely.) Emilio Bonifacio hit a stand-up double, and Gaby Sanchez drove him in with a double of his own to put the Marlins up 1-0.
That was the end of the scoring for the Marlins in the game. In all fairness, though, the Fish had already scored two whole runs in the series, so we don't need to go getting greedy. Especially since a single run was all it took to win the game.
The new-and-improved Marlins bullpen took over with one out in the sixth, and combined to preserve the shutout, and Sanabia's first Big league victory.
The Fish scored a grand total of three runs in the series, but that was enough to take two out of three from the Nats.