Pablo Lopez turning corner, but Marlins do not in another extra-inning loss to Dodgers

After struggling to find consistency for over two months, Pablo Lopez may finally be turning the corner.

Lopez gave up just two earned runs over six innings on Monday night against the Los Angeles Dodgers with his lone mistake resulting in a two-run home run in the third inning by Will Smith.

The Marlins, however, couldn’t back up the effort with a victory as they fell 3-2 in 10 innings and dropped three of four overall to the team with Major League Baseball’s best record.

Trea Turner legged out an infield single — his 1,000th career hit — to lead off the 10th. Freddie Freeman then grounded out, scoring automatic runner Cody Bellinger to provide L.A. with the winning margin.

The Marlins put a threat together in the bottom half of the inning when they loaded the bases with one out against Dodgers closer Craig Kimbrel. Chris Martin relieved Kimbrel and proceeded to strike out Garrett Cooper and induced a pop-up to first from Jacob Stallings to pick up his first save of the season.

The Marlins fell to 21-28 in one-run games and 7-7 in extra-inning games. It was the third extra-inning game they played in their past five and second extra-inning loss in this series to the Dodgers.

“Nobody wants to lose a game but these guys continue to play hard and continue to prepare and do the best they can,” Marlins manager Don Mattingly said. “None of these guys aren’t trying. They’re working hard to improve and learning on the run, a lot of them at this level. And it’s what you get when you’re in the mode that we’re in, giving a lot of guys chances.”

But for Lopez, who has now pitched a career-high 146 innings, Monday’s start was a positive step as he tries to finish a season healthy for the first time in his career.

Lopez struck out six, walked three and allowed five hits over six innings.

It was the first time he pitched at least six innings and allowed two earned runs or fewer in back-to-back starts for the first time since he threw eight shutout innings against the Padres on May 7 and allowed only one earned run and struck out 11 over seven innings at home against the Brewers on May 13.

“I felt really good today and I think we had a really good mix and we picked good times to keep the fastball alive and pick times to give hitters a different look,” Lopez said.

Lopez threw six scoreless innings in his previous start at Oakland last Tuesday.

It was also the first time Lopez pitched at least six innings in consecutive starts since doing so over three outings from May 24-June 4.

“Good results give you confidence and confidence gives you good results,” Lopez said. “Even if an outing didn’t have the most positive things, you try to find little positive things and then build off that.”

The Smith home run, which went 415 feet to center, came off a 94.9 mph fastball over the heart of the plate and followed a two-out single by Freddie Freeman.

Prior to these past two starts, Lopez’s results fluctuated with seven starts where he allowed four or more earned runs and seven in which he allowed two runs or fewer. This followed a stellar first 10 starts this season when Lopez compiled a 1.83 ERA with 61 strikeouts, 15 walks and allowed only five home runs over 59 innings.

THIS AND THAT

▪ Stallings caught his 225th consecutive game without being charged with a passed ball, surpassing the MLB record set by Hall of Famer Johnny Bench from 1974-76.

“I thought that was today. It’s pretty cool,” Stallings said. “I wish I had played better on the day I broke it, but it’s still pretty cool.”

▪ The Marlins pitched closer Tanner Scott in the seventh inning on Monday night with the game tied at 2. Scott, who endured his sixth blown save of the season this past Friday, struck out the side. Scott has 19 saves this season.

Dylan Floro pitched the ninth and worked around a leadoff walk to Justin Turner and a two-out single to Cody Bellinger to keep the Dodgers scoreless.

“I’m not trying to find roles for anybody really at this point,” Mattingly said. “We felt like it was a good spot for him. He’s been having trouble with the strike zone. We felt like we could put him in a spot where we could protect him. You can’t really protect him in the ninth because if he gets in trouble you’re going to have to let him go through it.”

This story was originally published August 29, 2022 at 10:10 PM.

Andre C. Fernandez

Miami Herald

Andre Fernandez is the Deputy Sports Editor of the Miami Herald and has covered a wide variety of sports during his career including the Miami Marlins, Miami Heat, Miami Dolphins, University of Miami athletics, and high school sports.