Miami Marlins’ offense hits lowest point of 2019 season with shutout loss in Atlanta
The Miami Marlins’ struggles at the plate Wednesday, when they closed out their season-opening homestand against the New York Mets, were understandable. Jacob deGrom, the reigning Cy Young Award-winner, somehow looks even better than he did last season and carved through the Marlins for seven shutout innings.
On Friday, those struggles continued against Kevin Gausman. For seven innings, Miami flailed against the 27-year-old starting pitcher. Shut out for the first time in 2019 and held by the starter to just two hits, the Marlins offense hit its lowest point of the young season in a 4-0 loss to the Atlanta Braves in their first road game of the year.
“Their guy did a good job to stay away from our barrels, kept guys off base,” slugging third baseman Brian Anderson said, “and we couldn’t really get anything going there.”
Gausman, making his season debut after beginning the year on the injured list, set down the last 21 batters he faced in order thanks to three double plays. After opening the game with back-to-back walks and giving up a second-inning hit to shortstop JT Riddle, Gausman went seven shutout innings, allowing just one more hit in the seventh, which was wiped out by a double play. Twice the right-handed pitcher struck out the side to finish the game with seven strikeouts.
“I think we helped him a little bit on the split down, which is easier said than done. You know he’s going to pitch down and basically his fastball is going to run into the righty, away from the lefty,” manager Don Mattingly said. “I just think we weren’t able to leave that one down enough. He was throwing it for strikes enough that you swing at it and then got the ones down low enough that we’re chasing.”
For all but one inning, the Marlins (2-6) pitched well enough to win. One big inning swung it for the Braves (4-3) in front of 29,218 at SunTrust Park.
After winning his season debut Saturday against the Colorado Rockies, Pablo Lopez (1-1) started strong again in Atlanta. Lopez (1-1) scattered two hits in his first three innings, locking up the Braves for two strikeouts looking. In the fourth, the starting pitcher unraveled. Freddie Freeman opened with a single, then Ronald Acuna Jr. sat on a changeup and launched an opposite-field home run over the right-field wall. After getting two groundouts, Lopez hung a curveball and catcher Tyler Flowers took the right-handed pitcher deep again to give Atlanta a 3-0 lead.
In all, Lopez threw 36 pitches in the inning after throwing just 39 in the first three. Shortstop Dansby Swanson drew a two-out walk to follow Flowers, then Gausman (1-0) slapped a single to left field and outfielder Ender Inciarte extended the lead to 4-0 with another base hit before Lopez finally struck out third baseman Josh Donaldson to end the inning.
“The breaking ball wasn’t there like it was in the first three innings,” Lopez said. “I wasn’t getting on top of it and it didn’t have the right spin, didn’t have the consistency and you can’t expect good results when you’re missing your spots like that.”
Miami didn’t allow another hit the rest of the way, but it only recorded two.
The Marlins have made a habit of testing opposing bullpens in the ninth inning after scuffling through the first eight frames. On Monday against the Mets, Miami put a runner in scoring position in the ninth inning of a game it lost by four, then the Marlins actually scored four times in the ninth Wednesday after being shut out for the first eight innings.
On Friday, Miami came within one swing of potentially forcing extra innings. Until the ninth, the only Marlin to reach scoring position was outfielder Curtis Granderson, who got to second after Gausman (1-0) walked two in a row to start the game. First baseman Peter O’Brien started the ninth with a lead-off walk and third baseman Martin Prado quickly put two in scoring position when he laced a double down the third base-line. A two-out walk by utility man Neil Walker loaded the bases for Starlin Castro.
The second baseman took one pitch for a strike, then lifted a ball to left field. Another almost-tantalizing ninth-inning rally fell short and Miami fell for the fourth straight game.
“That’s kind of what you want to get some traffic in there and then you get the middle of your lineup coming up, and we just came up a little bit short today,” said Anderson, who had one of the Marlins’ three hits. “We’ve just got to get on base and we’ve got to do stuff earlier in that game, give ourselves a better fighting chance.”
This story was originally published April 5, 2019 at 9:57 PM.