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The Miami Marlins had a chance to beat the Washington Nationals tonight, but Tom Koehler had some early struggles and it was just too much to overcome in Miami. Koehler started off the game with two outs before a long at-bat led to a Jayson Werth walk. Adam LaRoche killed the Marlins again with a two-run homer and the Nats were up 2-0 early.
Things could have gotten worse in the third inning for Koehler. He allowed a leadoff triple to Denard Span and walked the next two batters to load the bases to leadoff the inning. But then Koehler immediately found the strikeout touch against LaRoche, and Ian Desmond lined a ball to second baseman Enrique Hernandez, who caught the ball and slid in to get the the runner trying to return to second base for a spectacular double play to end the frame.
Miami stayed in the game by getting a run back in the second inning. Marcell Ozuna led things off with a triple and Justin Bour grounded out to drive home the Marlins' first run. And Bour was not done in the game. In the fourth inning, he launched his first career big-league home run, a no-doubter that hit the second deck of the home run porch in right field.
Unfortunately, that came only after the Nats scored once in the fourth as well. Consecutive singles by Wilson Ramos and Asdrubal Cabrera, followed by a Span single, drove home the Nats' third run of the night.
Three runs was just enough. The Nationals bullpen threw 2 1/3 scoreless innings with no strikeouts and one walk but no hits, while Koehler finished an ugly night with five innings and five strikeouts versus four walks. Miami struck out just once all night but only picked up five hits en route to a 3-2 loss.
Source: FanGraphs
Attendance: 19,815
Hero of the Game: No one
Goat of the Game: Christian Yelich (-0.225 WPA)
Play of the Game: Adam LaRoche homered in the first inning. Jayson Werth scored. (-0.212 WPA)