The Cardinals come back to edge the Marlins, 3-2

You have to be happy with how Pablo Lopez has been pitching. He had a 3.06 ERA over his last three outings, and has added to the excitement that young arms such as Caleb Smith, Trevor Richards and Sandy Alcantara have given Marlins fans so far this season. To become a solid major league club, it all starts with starting pitching, and though none of these are clear cut “aces”, they have all shown quite a bit of potential.

Tonight, Lopez had a very effective evening indeed, mixing his change up and curve ball in with his low-90s fastball to lead him through his first six frames without giving up a run. Oh, and Derek Dietrich helped out with several excellent plays in the field.

The Fish came out strong at the plate. With a leadoff double by Derek Dietrich, Justin Bour strode towards home plate with his new walk-up music, “Jump” by Van Halen. Whatever mojo it gave him certainly worked, as Bour delivered a single to center to score Dietrich for the early lead.

In the meantime, Mikolas settle in an was very efficient and showed the velocity and movement which led to him being an NL All-Star this season. The Marlins wouldn’t score again until the bottom of the fifth, when a leadoff triple by JT Riddle was followed by a single from Miguel Rojas to put the Marlins up 2-0.

In the seventh, Lopez met his match, as shortstop Paul DeJong w hit a line drive over the left field fence off a hanging breaking ball to tie the game 2-2. It was a dagger of sorts to fans watching and rooting for Lopez to shut the Cards out and exit the game triumphantly with a lead.

Still, through seven innings, giving up only two runs on four hits while walking one and fanning five will go down as an excellent outing by any measure and the rookie has to be buoyed by his continued success.

Elieser Hernandez came in the game for the Fish in the eighth inning and faced the dangerous Matt Carpenter with the bases empty and one out. Carpenter hit a moon shot over the right field wall for his 30th homer of the season (and 11th since the All-Star break), to break the tie and gave the Cardinals a 3-2 lead.

Bud Norris would come on in the ninth for St. Louis and get the save for the Cards by getting JT Riddle with the third out, stranding the tying run at second.

The rubber game of the season will be tomorrow, as Trevor Richards takes his change up to the hill to try to give the Fish the series win.

FanGraphs

King Fish: Pablo Lopez with seven strong innings to continue solid pitching at home for Miami

Flounder: Elieser giving up the winning run

Moment of the game: See “Flounder”

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Game Preview

Pablo Lopez looks to pull a Wei-Yin Chen tonight and shut down the Cardinals at Marlins Park. He’s taking on All-Star Miles Mikolas, who has led the St. Louis rotation with an 11-3 record and a 2.75 ERA. As for me? I’m going to be focused on rookies Brian Anderson and Magneuris Sierra to come through against the tough righty, and fellow rookie Pablo Lopez, who has a 3.06 ERA over his past three starts.