Marlins’ losing streak hits four games after dropping opener to Cardinals. Takeaways from the loss
The Miami Marlins’ losing streak coming out of the All-Star Break has now reached four games.
The Marlins dropped their series opener against the St. Louis Cardinals 6-4 on Monday at Busch Stadium. They fall to 53-43 on the season.
The four-game losing streak is one shy of their season-high of five, done May 2-6 when they were swept by the Atlanta Braves at home and then lost the first two games of a road series to the Chicago Cubs.
Miami only lost more than two consecutive games two other times after that in their run up to the All-Star Break.
The Marlins now find themselves in a logjam for wild card positioning. They are one of four teams — the San Francisco Giants, Arizona Diamondbacks and Philadelphia Phillies being the others — all sitting within a game of each other for three wild-card spots.
“We’ve got 60-something [games] left,” Marlins manager Skip Schumaker said. “We’ve got a long way to go.”
But that’s only if they can right the course. The trade deadline is Aug. 1, and Miami will need to stay afloat in the playoff race between now and then. A losing streak like this was bound to happen at some point, but Miami will need to find a way to correct the course soon.
Here are three takeaways from the game.
Jesus Luzardo battles through command struggles
The Marlins purposely slotted left-handed pitcher Jesus Luzardo into the back end of the rotation coming out of the break. He entered Monday having already set career highs for starts (19) and innings pitched (108 1/3) with another two-and-a-half months of the season left to play. Schumaker said they knew they would need to give him a breather at some point, so logically it made sense to do so here.
But while Luzardo won’t use the extended time off as an excuse, his command was erratic in his first start back.
He was removed two batters into the fifth inning and was charged with three runs (two earned runs) on five hits and three walks with two strikeouts. It was just the fourth time this season he didn’t complete at least five innings and only the second time since the start of May.
Luzardo had little command for his slider and changeup early, forcing him to rely more heavily on his four-seam fastball from the get-go. 11 of the 20 batters he faced got to three-ball counts.
“Just felt a little out of sync,” Luzardo said. “I just couldn’t get a good grip on the ball. It’s something I obviously have to adjust to. I don’t know if it was the humidity or whatever, but just felt like the ball’s had a little moisture on them. Again, it’s not an excuse. It’s something I need to fix.”
That said, Luzardo worked a pair of scoreless innings to begin his start, working around a single and a walk in the second inning, before things unraveled. He gave up a one-out double in the third to Dylan Carlson, who scored on a Nolan Arenado single to tie the game at 1-1.
And then Luzardo walked Carlson on seven pitches to begin the fifth inning before giving up a single to Paul Goldschmidt to end his night. JT Chargois replaced Luzardo and allowed both inherited runners to score, with Arenado hitting a sacrifice fly to score Carlson and Jordan Walker hitting a single to score Goldschmidt, who had moved up to second on a failed pickoff attempt by Chargois.
What has happened to Dylan Floro
The Cardinals took the lead for good during a three-run sixth inning against right-handed pitcher Dylan Floro, who gave up four consecutive two-out hits.
Floro has been one of the Marlins’ key high-leverage relievers ever since they acquired him ahead of the 2021 season. At different points over each of his three seasons with Miami, he has spent time as the club’s closer and logged 32 total saves. That includes seven this season when A.J. Puk was on the injured list.
But Floro’s role in the Marlins’ bullpen has diminished as of late. He has had little high-leverage work over the past month, with Tanner Scott and Puk getting the bulk of the eighth- and ninth-inning duties in close games. Floro has also given up at least one run in five of his past eight outings.
More missed chances
The Marlins have gone 9 for 37 with runners in scoring position in their past four games — a .243 average — and have left 30 runners on base in that span.
On Monday, they went 3 for 8 with runners in scoring position and left nine on base. Their three runs came on a pair of solo home runs from Bryan De La Cruz and Jesus Sanchez along with RBI singles from Luis Arraez and Garrett Cooper.
They had two key opportunities late that were squandered.
In the seventh, trailing 6-3, the Marlins put together a rally against Ryan Tepera on a Dane Myers one-out single, Jorge Soler two-out hit by pitch, Cooper’s RBI single and a Sanchez walk to load the bases. The Cardinals (41-53) made a pitching change, bringing in Giovanny Gallegos to face De La Cruz, who ultimately grounded out to shortstop to strand the three runners.
“Putting the ball in play was my whole objective there — ideally where there was no defense,” De La Cruz said. “Things happen like that.”
And then in the ninth, Myers led off with a single that was erased when Arraez hit into a double play. Soler then hit a double and Cooper legged out an infield single to put runners on the corners and the tying runs on the basepaths but Sanchez grounded out to second base to end the game.
“We just haven’t been able to cash those runners in,” Schumaker said. “It’s four games after the All-Star Break. We’ll get there. ... We just have to put the wins together.”
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