Edward Cabrera’s bounceback outing paves way for Miami Marlins’ win over Nationals
Edward Cabrera needed a bounceback start like this. Just a week earlier, the Miami Marlins’ right-handed pitcher cruised through three innings before he “lost his rhythm,” in his words, in a start against the Arizona Diamondbacks and never recovered. It was another frustrating outing during a start to the season that has had its share of frustrating outings.
On Wednesday, in the Marlins’ 4-3 win over the Washington Nationals, there were no such frustrations. Cabrera showed his high-end talent and put together one of his best performances of the season.
His final line: Two runs allowed over five innings while striking out six and not issuing a walk. Both runs he gave up came on a second-inning home run by Corey Dickerson. After that, Cabrera retired 11 of the final 13 batters he faced before Marlins manager Skip Schumaker took the starter out of the game despite having only thrown 79 pitches because of a blister on his right middle finger.
“I don’t know what more you can ask for than that,” Schumaker said of Cabrera’s outing.
So what exactly was working for Cabrera? A few things to note:
▪ Of his 79 pitches, 55 landed for strikes. That’s a 69.6 percent strike rate, well above his season average of 59 percent and career average of 60 percent.
▪ Cabrera’s start on Wednesday marked the first time in his MLB career that he did not allow a walk while pitching at least five innings. In his first eight starts this season, Cabrera allowed 30 walks through 35 1/3 innings.
▪ Cabrera got Nationals hitters to swing and miss on 18 of their 45 swings. It was the third time this season that Cabrera induced at least 18 whiffs.
Of the 18 swings and misses, nine came against his changeup and six against his curveball, which have been Cabrera’s most effective pitches this season.
“There were a lot of lefties in the lineup,” Cabrera said. “The plan was to attack them with the changeup inside, the curveball outside and the fastball up. That was the plan, and it worked today.”
The Marlins (22-21), who improved to 14-1 in one-run games this season, scored their runs on a Yuli Gurriel sacrifice fly in the second inning, a Jorge Soler two-run home run in the fourth and a Bryan De La Cruz RBI double in the sixth.
Miami’s bullpen followed up Cabrera’s outing by holding the Nationals (18-25) to just one run through the final four innings, with Dylan Floro picking up his third save of the season.
500 hits for Luis Arraez
Luis Arraez’s double in the eighth inning was the 500th hit of his MLB career.
The infielder hit the milestone in just his 428th career game.
He is only the seventh active player to reach 500 career hits within their first 428 games. The others: Bo Bichette (407), Mookie Betts (408), Mike Trout (423), Jose Altuve, Whit Merrifield (426) and Jose Abreu (428).
Wednesday was Arraez’s 16th multihit game of the season.
This story was originally published May 17, 2023 at 9:08 PM.
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