Josh Beckett delivered a memorable World Series masterpiece for the Marlins on short rest. Kevin Slowey can’t say short rest turned out quite the same for him, though, as the Milwaukee Brewers made his night one to forget.
At least nobody will be talking about Slowey’s outing 10 years from now.
Slowey, working on three days’ rest for the first time in his major-league career, probably won’t be doing it again anytime soon after the Brewers disposed of him quickly in a 10-1 bludgeoning.
“We asked him to do a lot ... to come back on three days’ rest,” manager Mike Redmond said. “He gave us everything he had. He did everything he could.”
But Slowey didn’t blame the lack of proper rest for the performance.
“I think today’s game had a whole lot less to do with the number of days of rest than me not executing pitches,” Slowey said. “The pitches I executed, the majority of them I got outs. The pitches I didn’t, they hit.”
The Brewers peppered Slowey for six runs on nine hits to take the series and prevent the last-place Marlins from cracking the 20-win plateau. That will have to wait until Friday at the earliest when the Marlins, who have the worst record in the majors, open a series against the St. Louis Cardinals, who have the best.
If the Marlins don’t play any better than they did Wednesday, the Cardinals series could get ugly.
“That’s probably the worst game we’ve played all year,” Redmond said.
Slowey became the 10th pitcher in Marlins’ regular-season history to pitch on three days’ rest after throwing at least five innings in his previous outing. Six of the first nine ended up with wins. Slowey wasn’t as fortunate.
Jonathan Lucroy delivered a bases-loaded triple in the first inning, and it continued going downhill from there for Slowey and the Marlins, who coupled the pitcher’s poor outing with another dismal game at the plate.
But Slowey was just part of the problem.
For the Brewers, Alfredo Figaro was magnifico.
Figaro gave up a one-out single to Ed Lucas in the first, then retired the next 17 batters before Lucas ended the drought with another base hit in the seventh.
The win for the 28-year-old pitcher was his first since the 2009 season when he was a member of the Detroit Tigers.
It was a quick letdown offensively for the Marlins, who one night before pulled out a 5-4 victory on Giancarlo Stanton’s two-run homer in the eighth and had been showing a bit more life with the bat of late. There were no such heroics Wednesday for the Marlins, who played poorly all around.
“Definitely disappointed after an emotional win last night,” Redmond said. “We knew it was going to be a battle with Slowey going back on three days. But we pretty much got shut down offensively. Coming off a big win, I was just hoping we’d be able to carry that over.”
Slowey was just part of the problem. The Marlins didn’t hit, waiting until one out in the ninth to score their only run and avoid the shutout. And they didn’t field.
Lucas made a throwing error that produced an unearned run in the fourth and second baseman Derek Dietrick was charged with one of his own. Dietrich’s came on the second bases-loaded triple of the night for the Brewers.
“We made two mistakes, gave them a bunch of runs,” Redmond said.
Carlos Gomez cleared the bases with his shot into the right-field corner. Dietrich compounded the misery by taking the cutoff and throwing the ball into the seats, enabling Gomez to trot home.
• Chris Coghlan will be examined in Texas on Sunday by spine specialist Dr. Drew Dossett. Coghlan was placed on the 15-day disabled list earlier in the week after an MRI revealed a lower-back injury.
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