Justin Bour homers in his return; Marlins defeat Braves 5-0

The Marlins (30-35) opened up a three game series with the Atlanta Braves (29-37) in their new ballpark in Cobb County with a 5-0 victory.

Dan Straily (W, 5-4) started the game for the Marlins and was brilliant. He went 6.1 scoreless innings, allowing only four hits, walking none, and striking out eight. Straily has had the best year of any Marlins starter; he has yet to miss a turn through the rotation while leading the group in innings pitched (78.0), strikeouts (80), and ERA (3.58).

Jarlin Garcia, David Phelps, and Kyle Barraclough combined for 2.2 scoreless innings to shut the door. Isn’t it nice when the bullpen does its job!?

The Marlins jumped out to a lead before many paying customers sat in their seats. Dee Gordon singled on the second pitch of the game, stole second base, and promptly scored on a Christian Yelich double. 1-0 Fish before the fourth battered stepped to the dish.

Justin Bour was activated off the disabled list on Friday afternoon. He had been sidelined since June 5th with an ankle injury. In his second at-bat of the evening, he took rookie southpaw Sean Newcomb (L, 0-2) deep to center for his 17th homer of the year.

The Marlins tacked on another run in the sixth inning on a double play. It’s not an RBI in the scorebook, but the Marlins will take that run every time. Yelich drove in another two runs in the ninth inning with a single to left. He went 3-for-5 on the evening.

The fish totaled 10 hits on the evening. More than half came from Gordon and Yelich who had three a-piece. The other four hits came from Giancarlo Stanton, J.T. Realmuto, J.T. Riddle, and Bour. Gordon stole his 22nd and 23rd base of the season in the victory.

Bour gave everyone a scare after he left the game in the eighth inning, but Joe Frisario reported that everything is okay. He will sit on Saturday before returning to the lineup on Sunday.

For those of you who care about the exciting Freeze race at SunTrust Park, he finally lost a race on Friday night. I guess nobody is perfect!

Here is the Fangraphs win expectancy graph for the game.

Fangraphs

The same teams will be back at it tomorrow at 4:10 PM. It will be Jeff Locke for the Marlins and Jaime Garcia for the Braves.