MLB Scores: Miami Marlins 3, New York Mets 2

Source: FanGraphs

Attendance: 18.714
Hero of the Game: Henderson Alvarez (0.234 WPA)
Goat of the Game: Placido Polanco (-0.099 WPA)
Play of the Game: Jake Marisnick homered in the second inning. (+0.119 WPA)

The story of tonight's 3-2 victory for the Miami Marlins over the New York Mets is a simple one. Henderson Alvarez got 16 ground balls out of 24 balls in play total, a 66.7 percent rate, and gave up just six hits as a result. It sounds even better when you consider that three of those hits were of the infield single variety.

The other numbers for Alvarez did not come out as pretty as those, in particular his one strikeout versus two walks, but he was aided heavily by defense tonight. The Fish picked up three double plays in front of the groundball machine Alvarez, which helped to stop the mild bleeding he occasionally allowed.

That was more than enough for the Marlins, who got out on the scoreboard against Jenrry Meijia early. In the second inning, Jake Marisnick turned on a two-strike pitch and lofted it into the left field porch for his first career home run. It was a smooth and easy swing that generated an arcing ball that did not appear like it was traveling quickly so much as far.

Christian Yelich also contributed by picking up a single and a double on the evening in his attempt to halt a previous 0-for-16 slide.

Mike Dunn got the call to make a four-out save with Steve Cishek unavailable due to his heavy workload last night. Dunn relieved Chad Qualls in the eighth and ran into a lone single by John Buck before extinguishing the Mets.