Fish Cap: Marlins 9, Cubs 5

Source: FanGraphs

Attendance: 34,397

Hero of the Game: Anibal Sanchez (.204 WPA)

Goat of the Game: Hanley Ramirez (-.072 WPA)

Play of the Game: Omar Infante homered off of Travis Wood in the forth inning. Austin Kearns scored (.201 WPA).

The Marlins take game one of this series in impressive fashion. Not only do they score plenty of runs, they even got a fabulous pitching performance from Anibal (seven strong innings). Now the Fish have won three out of four, and have Josh Johnson going on Wednesday night. Hopefully the team can get on a similar winning streak to the one they had when they went out west early in the season. With road games against the Pirates and Braves, and home series against the Braves and Padres remaining in July, anything is possible.

The Long Ball Approach

The Fish hit three home runs Tuesday night. Including a grand slam off the bat of Carlos Lee, Mr. RBI man. The other homers were hit by Hanley and Omar Infante. Sometimes they come in bunches. The cool thing about the Hanley homer is that it had been awhile, and now he has hit two in a few games. Like we have said all along, Ramirez is key. As Hanley goes, so do the Marlins. But nevertheless, the long ball approach never hurts. And thus its nice to see the Fish bring it out on this night.

Team Pitching

Not only did Anibal only give up one earned run in seven innings, the bullpen did their job as well. Well, except for Chad Gaudin (he gave up three runs without recording an out). Randy Choate came into the game in the eighth to rescue Gaudin by inducing an inning ending double play. And former closer Heath Bell pitched a scoreless ninth. Three up and three down for Bell. But all the kudos on this night go to the hero of the game, Anibal Sanchez. With the possibility of a trade looming, he shut down a relatively hot Cubs line up.

- Marlins and Cubs Wednesday night. A good looking pitching match up, Josh Johnson vs. Jeff Samardzija. And the Marlins coming off of a great offensive performance Tuesday night. Will the Fish close to within one game of .500? We'll find out.