Jose Ureña tosses another gem; Marlins beat Cubs 2-0

For the fifth Friday in a row, the Marlins (33-39) won a game. They blanked the Cubs (37-36) by a final score of 2-0, to even the series at one game a piece.

Jose Urena (W, 6-2) turned in another fantastic start on Friday night, keeping the Cubs offense silent from start to finish. He went six scoreless innings, allowing only five hits, three walks, while striking out three. Ureña now has three straight quality starts, while lowing his ERA to 3.33.

How did the Marlins take the lead? Take a wild guess. I’m sure it won’t take long for you to predict the correct answer.

[waiting]

If you guessed Giancarlo Stanton hit a home run to the moon, you would be right!

That towering home run off John Lackey was his 19th on the season and the only run the Marlins would need.

Just for good measure, the Marlins tacked on an insurance run in the sixth inning. Dee Gordon led off the inning with a single, advanced to third base thanks to a stolen base and a throwing error, before Christian Yelich sent him home on a sac fly to center. That stolen base was his 28th of the season. Two runs won’t be enough on most nights, but Urena and the pen took care of business tonight.

Kyle Barraclough, David Phelps, and A.J. Ramos each threw a scoreless inning of relief to shut the door. Nice and easy. Don’t you love it when the bullpen doesn’t implode?

The Cubs actually doubled the Marlins hit total on the evening (6 to 3). Stanton had two hits and Gordon had the other. Yelich and Justin Bour were the only others to reach base via the walk. That was it. Five baserunners. I guess the pitching owed the offense a pick-me-up one of these days.

Here is the Fangraphs win expectancy graph

Fangraphs

The Marlins and Cubs will play game three of their four game set tomorrow at 4:10 PM. It will be Jon Lester for the Cubs taking on Justin Nicolino.