Marlins Can’t Help Out Pablo...Again, Lose Another Starter

Despite a late comeback attempt, the Marlins offense fluttered with Pablo López on the mound again in a 3-2 Phillies win that forced a series split.

Both teams sent out depleted lineups as they are both dealing with numerous injuries and it showed on the field, with just five combined runs and ten combined hits in the game.

The Phillies would find the breakthrough in the 4th inning, when Rhys Hoskins took Pablo López deep to left center for his second home run of the series. The Phillies would tack on another to make it 2-0 after back-to-back hits and a sac-fly.

López would settle down nicely after the tough 4th, retiring the final 11 batters he faced including three straight 1-2-3 innings. Pablo threw seven strong innings, allowing just the two runs on four hits and a walk, while striking out five.

The Marlins would get one back in the 5th after a Jesús Aguilar sac-fly with the bases loaded. However, Isan Diaz made a costly base running mistake after hesitating trying to advance to 3rd, and was thrown out to end the inning. Luckily for the Marlins, León scored just before Diaz was tagged out.

The Marlins would use some more 8th inning magic to tie the game at 2 as Garrett Cooper delivered another big hit to extend his hitting streak to 12 games.

In the 9th, Odubel Herrera led off with a triple and the Marlins almost turned an inning ending double play, but SS Ronald Torreyes made a great stretch to beat out the throw and Herrera scored.

“No regrets. I felt that I had the chance to turn the double play there so that’s what I did,” said Yimi García about the play. García tried to start the double play instead of looking back the runner at 3rd, and the Marlins were inches away from it paying off.

The Marlins still had a chance and would get the tying run on in the 9th, but Neris picked up a K and rolled a double play to get the save.

One of the headlines coming into the game was 1B Lewin Díaz being called up from Triple-A Jacksonville before the game. With all the Marlins injury troubles they needed an extra player and Díaz got the call. He went 0-4 with 3 K, but showed tremendous defensive prowess at first base, including making a sparkling unassisted double play to end the 6th.

As for Pablo, the story goes on this year. Manager Don Mattingly said a couple nights ago it seemed like Sandy is the Marlins guy who doesn’t get any run support, but they actually may have two of them. “He’s another guy that hasn’t gotten a ton of support...we wanna make sure [our pitchers] stay focused that they can only control one thing,” Mattingly said.

This outing brought López’s ERA down to 2.71 on the year, but excluding the game where the Marlins scored 14 runs in a no decision, the Marlins have scored just 29 runs in 10 starts for López. The lack of run support he’s gotten adds up to just one win on his record despite a phenomenal season so far.

Another late inning story that developed is that Miguel Rojas left the game with a dislocated finger. He suffered the injury when he got picked off first base on a back-pick play in the 8th inning. Mattingly said after the game “he’s not feeling very good...looks like it’s gonna be a bit” and suggested that a stint on the IL is a real possibility. Rojas would be the 2nd Marlins starter to hit the IL this week, after Brian Anderson found himself there following a shoulder injury during Monday’s game.

On the positive side of injury news, Mattingly announced that Starling Marte will travel to Boston with the team. A move for his activation still needs to be made.

The Marlins hit the 50-game mark at 24-26, and head to Boston tomorrow to begin a weekend set with the Red Sox.