MIA 3, NYM 9; Cabrera’s struggles travel to New York in a series-opening loss

After an unexpected off-day, the Marlins were back in action as they went on their first road trip of 2023 to Queens, NY. With the Mets celebrating their home opener, the Marlins sent Edward Cabrera to the mound and Tylor Megill started for the Mets.

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After a rough start against this same Mets team in Miami, where Cabrera allowed six walks, struck out two, and allowed two runs, it wasn’t any better for him at Citi field. Allowing a career-high seven walks, striking out four, not allowing any hits, and giving up two runs (both earned), Cabrera worked up high pitch counts in each inning he was out there.

Cabrera’s biggest issue thus far in his two starts has been his control. The majority of his pitches are missing outside the strike zone, and it didn’t help that he had two pitch-clock violations called against him in this game. Cabrera leads all of MLB so far with 13 walks allowed in 2023.

If there are some positives from Edward’s start, the velocity and spin rate of all of the pitches in his arsenal except for his fastball were up compared to last week. He also barely allowed any hard contact to the Mets. Cabrera is slated to make his next start against the Phillies in the final game of that three-game set.

After Edward was removed from the game, Huascar Brazoban entered the game and also ran into some trouble. Brazoban allowed an inherited run to score when he failed to score first base on a ground ball to the right side.

With Tomás Nido getting a leadoff single in the bottom of the fourth, the Marlins worked two quick outs, but then Pete Alonso smacked an RBI single to drive in Nido and extend the Mets lead to 3-0.

Brazoban was taken out of the game after that. Overall, he allowed three hits and one earned run of his own.

In that same inning, we saw Jazz Chisholm Jr. make his first challenging catch out in center field by robbing his former Marlins teammate Starling Marte. With a 55 percent chance of making this play (per Statcast), Jazz reacted extremely quickly and covered the exact amount of feet needed to make the catch.

After a quiet fifth inning from both teams, the Mets added a run thanks to a Marte home run. Matt Barnes threw this curveball right down the middle to attempt to get back in the count and Marte took advantage of it to extend the New York lead to 4-0. The homer left the bat at 104.0 MPH and went 419 feet in the air.

In the seventh inning, the Mets loaded up the bases, and Eduardo Escobar grounded into a fielder’s choice to produce the team’s fifth run. With runners on the corners, Nido hit a sac fly to make it 6-0. The trail runner Escobar also attempted to tag up on the play and was thrown out at second by Jesús Sánchez to end the inning.

Just when all hope seemed lost for the Marlins, they scored. Luis Arráez and Jorge Soler worked walks in the eighth inning, which set up Garrett Cooper. With two outs in the inning and a full count, Cooper hit a 406-foot homer to right-center field and that put the Marlins on the board, but still losing, 6-3.

However, the Mets ended any chance of a comeback by piling on insurance runs against Daniel Castano. Francisco Lindor and Pete Alonso homered to stretch the lead to 9-3. For Alonso, it was his 150th career homer, and Jazz almost robbed it with a leaping attempt.

Game Notes

• The Marlins had six hits and managed to score three runs.
• Edward allowed the most amount of walks by a Marlins pitcher since Trevor Richards in 2019. As a team, Marlins pitchers walked 12, tying a franchise record for the highest total in a non-extra-inning game.
• At three hours and one minute, this was the longest time of game for the 2023 Marlins so far.
• The only Marlins reliever to have a clean inning was Andrew Nardi, who struck out two hitters.
• Garrett Cooper and Jean Segura were the only Marlins with multi-hit games.

Miami fell to 3-5 and the Mets got back to .500, moving into second place in the NL East.

Skip Schumaker’s Postgame Press Conference