Marlins throw a seventeen-hitter, swept by Cubs, and lose 13-4

MAN-that sucked.

The misery began in the bottom of the first when Kris Bryant stepped up to the plate in the bottom of the first and belted his 100th home run.

Through the third inning, it was obvious that Chen wasn’t anywhere remotely close to pitching on a professional level, but the score still remained 1-0. Well...it all began with a double courtesy of Addison Russell, who was sacrificed to third by Quintana. After a walk by Albert Almora Jr., Bryant doubled in Russell and Javier Baez singled in Almora. It wasn’t over after that as Anthony Rizzo demolished Chen’s somehow perfectly waist-high pitch 410 feet into the stands. That left us at 6-0.

Sheesh.

But wait! There’s more! Wilson Contreras followed Rizzo’s homer with a triple of his own. David Bote would drive in Contreras. Ian Happ (of the infamous first pitch on Opening Day home run) would score on an Addison Russell homer. So...yeah. Not great. 9-0 heading into the 4th inning.

Quintana seemed to be off as well as he ran up a number of high pitch counts early on. The Marlins had a chance in the 2nd inning after Lewis Brinson’s single moved Cameron Maybin over to 3rd. However, Brian Anderson struck out looking and that extinguished most of the Marlins offensive against Quintana until Justin Bour’s RBI grounder in the 4th.

Don Mattingly threw in the towel in pretty early as he replaced Chen with Junichi Tazawa. I felt like this gif really summed up my emotions in that moment.

Nick Wittgren entered in the 5th inning and moved through just fine. He struck out Ian Happ and was the only Marlins pitcher to not give up a run in Wednesday’s game.

Merandy Gonzalez struck out 4 in his 2 innings of work, however he still managed to give up 2 runs in the 6th. He exited the 7th inning without sacrificing any runs.

Miguel Rojas would hit his 5th homer of the season in the 7th off of Justin Hancock, who was making his big league debut. This drove in J.B. Shuck and brought the score to 12-3.

Brian Holaday would hit a home run in the bottom of the 9th to round out the final (very depressing score) of 13-4.

Yeah, Miggy it definitely was...

Here’s what the Marlins will have to face as the red-hot Braves come to town for a four-game series.

FanGraphs.com

Swordfish: Kris Bryant (.192 WPA)

Flounder: Wei-Yin Chen (-.329) **throws up in mouth**

Moment of the Game: I mean...I’ll just say the entire 3rd inning.

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Please leave any Icthy picks in the comments below (explainer).

Pitching Matchup

Today’s Lineup

Matchup Summary

In his first career start at Wrigley Field, Wei-Yin Chen (1-1) looks to get back on track after a rough outing in Cincinnati. He gave up 5 hits and 4 earned runs on Friday against an abysmal Reds team. The game was already lost in the first inning where he gave up two home runs, one to Eugenio Suarez and the other to Adam Duvall.

The Cubs have very little experience facing Chen. Outside of Ben Zobrist-who holds a .286 average over 28 AB-no Cubbie has more than 3 AB against the lefty from Taiwan.

José Quintana (3-2) had a hard time in his last start against the Cardinals. It took him 88 pitches to get through only four innings. The 29-year-old lefty last faced the Marlins back on April 1st where he gave up 6 runs over 6 innings. Starlin Castro looks to break his 0-15 streak against Quintana. Brian Anderson beat him up in their last game when he had 3 RBI in just 2 at-bats.

You can also watch today’s game on Twitter. Unfortunately, blackout restrictions do apply.

Thread Question

Chen is now in year 3 of his contract that ends in 2021, and he’s scheduled to make $10 million this season. In your opinion, what would he have to do through 2018 to make that feel like money well spent?