Fish Cap: Astros 3, Marlins 2

Source: FanGraphs

Attendance: 14,801

Hero of the Game: Anibal Sanchez (7 IP, O ER, 8 SO, 5 H, .134 WPA)

Goat of the Game: Ryan Webb (2/3 IP, 1 ER, -.275 WPA)

Play of the Game: Pitch hitter Brian Bogusevic doubled in the winning run in the eighth inning off of Marlins reliever Ryan Webb. Travis Buck scored it all the way from first base.

The Miami Marlins took on the Astros Tuesday night in game two of their three game set. The Marlins had come in winners of seven in a row. And by getting all of these wins away from Marlins Park, the team was able to even their road record to 9-9. However, the team will have to start a new winning streak as they did not hit much in this one-run loss. Unfortunate really because they wasted another great pitching performance, this time from Anibal Sanchez. While it has been the case for most of the season that the Marlins can pitch. One wonders how long until consistent hitting happens. Its been thirty games already.

Not Much Offense

The Marlins only managed four hits on this night. Two of them were solo home runs. Omar Infante hit his sixth home run in the fourth. And John Buck hit his third an inning later. The Marlins were up by the score of 2-0 heading into the bottom of the sixth. However, after the Astros tied the game at two in that inning, the Marlins only got singles from Greg Dobbs (eigth inning) and LoMo (ninth) the rest of the way. The ball club only left four runners in scoring position. So yes, a very light hitting night from the Fish. Coming off of a long winning streak, I guess that is to be expected. Hopefully the bats come back to life against Lucas Harrell Wednesday night.

Anibal Pitches Great

One of the best parts about the Marlins winning streak was watching a different starting pitcher go out every night and throw a better game than the previous (except JJ of course). Its almost like a friendly competition. Nolasco was brilliant Sunday. Buehrle pitched the heck out of the ball Saturday night. And obviously Big Z throws the complete game shut out Monday in game one of the present series. Anibal did a marvelous job for the Fish in game two. Primarily, he kept the ball club in the game. By pitching seven innings and giving up no earned runs (the two Astros runs in the sixth were unearned due to two fielding errors by O Infante), Sanchez lowered his ERA to 2.01. Impressive stuff. How nice would it be for the Fish to be able to count on these type of pitching performances all season.

JJ Pitches Wednesday Night

Josh Johnson was spotted a six run lead Friday night against the Padres. At the time, I was hoping he pitched at least five innings so he could get his first win. However, he somehow managed to give back this light hitting San Diego team six runs, an inning later. This is an important start for Johnson when he pitches against the Astros Wednesday night. Not only do many of us think JJ is injured, now we are not even considering him as the team ace anymore. Sanchez and Zambrano have had unbelievable starts to the campaign that rival any other pitcher in the NL. So if Johnson wants to quiet the injury talk, and any other talk about him not having his stuff anymore, he should go out and pitch a dominant performance against one of the weaker teams in the league. And against a very small crowd (there was less than 15,000 in attendance Tuesday night).