Source: FanGraphs
Attendance: 28,968
Hero of the Game: John Buck (1.36 WPA)
Goat of the Game: Donovan Solano(-.114 WPA)
Play of the Game: In the forth inning, Carlos Lee singled to left. Justin Ruggiano scored. While Jose Reyes advances to third base. (.147 WPA)
The Marlins win game one of this series behind their good relief pitching, and timely hitting from Carlos Lee and John Buck. The game was not exciting after the fifth inning. And the return of Giancarlo Stanton did not necessarily make it to the highlight shows (zero for three with two strikeouts). However, Jose Reyes was able to extend his hitting streak to 25 games with an infield single in the forth. And so the longest hitting streak in the majors this season lives on.
The Offense Does Enough
The Marlins offense produced nine hits on this day. Specifically, two hits each for Buck, Justin Ruggiano, and Austin Kearns. Two runs batted in for John Buck, while Carlos Lee and Giancarlo each get one. And even more incredible, John Buck's two runs batted in were with two outs in the inning (where was that earlier in the season?). Again, the Marlins did enough on offense to win this game. They got four runs in the forth, and that's it.
The Relief Pitched Great
Carlos Zambrano, Mike Dunn, Heath Bell, and Steve Cishek pitched the last four innings of this game and give up no runs. In fact, they don't even give up a hit. They were dominant. They used their strikeout pitch (they recorded five punch outs between the four relievers), and only walked one batter. It was nice to see these guys step up with Wade LeBlanc observing a strict pitch limit (85).