Luis Arraez gets four hits but Marlins drop series to Orioles. Takeaways from the loss
The Miami Marlins saw a late lead fade away, and their penchant for comeback wins eluded them.
The end result: A 6-5 loss to the Baltimore Orioles on Saturday at Oriole Park at Camden Yards.
The Marlins fall to 53-41 and have dropped their first series following the All-Star Break after losing the first game to Baltimore 5-2 on Friday. The Orioles improve to 56-35.
The series finale is at 1:35 p.m. Sunday.
Miami took a 4-0 lead early and had its share of chances to tack on even more than that. The Marlins tallied 11 hits but went just 3 for 15 with runners in scoring position and left nine on base.
“We had a couple guys on base that we just couldn’t cash in later in the game and add those insurance runs,” Marlins manager Skip Schumaker said. “That’s a good team over there that came back and beat us.”
Here are three takeaways from the game.
Shaky innings from Garrett, Brazoban
A 30-pitch, three-run second inning led to a brief start for left-handed pitcher Braxton Garrett.
Overall, he gave up four runs over 4 2/3 innings on six hits and a walk with five strikeouts.
“I battled my butt off,” said Garrett, who dealt with a left middle finger issue through the start. “I tried to make pitches as best I could.”
After a scoreless first inning and the Miami offense putting up four runs in the top of the second, Garrett allowed the first three batters he faced in the second to reach base — Ryan Mountcastle with a double to left, Aaron Hicks via an eight-pitch walk and Cedric Mullins with an RBI single up the middle — to cut the Marlins’ lead to 4-1. He recorded outs to the next two batters before Jorge Mateo’s line drive to center that Dane Myers misread resulted in a two-run triple.
(More on Myers in a little bit.)
Garrett’s outing ended after he gave up back-to-back two-out hits in the fifth, with Anthony Santander’s single up the middle driving in Adley Rutschman, who doubled.
The outing snapped a 12-start stretch in which Garrett pitched at least five innings. The last time before Saturday when Garrett failed to get through at lest five innings was his May 3 meltdown against the Atlanta Braves when he gave up 11 runs over 4 1/3 innings.
In his final dozen starts before the All-Star Break following that game, Garrett pitched to a 2.86 ERA over 66 innings, striking out 79 batters while allowing just 10 walks and holding opponents to a .210 batting average against.
Garrett left with Miami holding a 5-4 lead. Steven Okert retired all four batters he faced, three via strikeout, to keep the Marlins’ lead intact through the sixth.
But then the Orioles tied the game on a Gunnar Henderson home run on the first pitch he saw from Huascar Brazoban in the seventh and then Baltimore tacked on the go-ahead run on a Santander RBI single.
Prior to Saturday, Brazoban had allowed jut one earned run over his final nine appearances before the All-Star Break.
Four more hits for Luis Arraez
Marlins All-Star second baseman Luis Arraez had a rare game without a hit on Friday to begin the unofficial second half of the season.
He more than made up for it on Saturday, going 4 for 5 at the plate with a double and an RBI.
Saturday was Arraez’s sixth four-hit game of the season. That’s a single-season Marlins record, breaking his tie with Hanley Ramirez, who had five in 2007.
Arraez’s batting average is up to .386. He is attempting to become the first player since Ted Williams in 1941 to finish a season with a .400 batting average.
Dane Myers’ eventful game
Myers had his share of big moments — both good and bad — on Saturday.
The good: He was involved in both of Miami’s run-scoring innings. His RBI fielder’s choice in the second inning was part of a 10-batter, five-hit, four-run frame that gave Miami an early 4-0 lead He later led off the fourth inning with a low line-drive single to left field and came around to score on a Bryan De La Cruz sacrifice fly to put Miami up 5-3.
The bad: His inexperience in center field began to show. He collided in right-center field with Jesus Sanchez on a first-inning line drive from Anthony Santander (Sanchez caught the ball to end the inning) and misread a Jorge Mateo line drive to straightaway center in the second inning that turned into a two-out, two-run triple to cut Miami’s lead to one run. Myers also misread a second line drive, this time from Henderson in the fourth, but rebounded to make his second diving catch of the series.
With that, a reminder: Myers had only played eight games in center field in the minor leagues (all this season in Double A) before being promoted to the big leagues and having to slot in there with both Jazz Chisholm Jr. (oblique) and Jonathan Davis (right meniscus surgery) sidelined.
This story was originally published July 15, 2023 at 10:00 PM.
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