Scoring early ‘would be great’ for Marlins in playoffs. The problem? They haven’t this year
The Miami Marlins had a penchant for late-game heroics and relying on timely comebacks in the regular season. It’s a big part of why they made it to the playoffs this year.
It has made for some thrilling moments in a thrilling season.
But it also led to many games like Tuesday’s 4-1 loss to the Phillies in Game 1 of a National League wild card series when Miami’s bats went stagnant for too long and they couldn’t put together their rally together until there were too few outs with which to work.
When it works, it makes for a great story.
When it doesn’t, it raises the question why the Marlins aren’t able to put together these rallies earlier in a game more often.
And now, it has Miami on the brink of its season ending unless it can win back-to-back games against the Phillies on Wednesday and Thursday at Citizens Bank Park.
“I’d love to score first. That would be great,” Marlins manager Skip Schumaker said. “We’ve, for whatever reason, been really good in the seventh, eighth and ninth inning this year. That’s kind of been our MO.”
In regular season, the Marlins manged to score just 414 runs in the first through sixth innings, the second-lowest total in MLB. In the seventh inning or later, they scored 252 runs, good for 11th best in MLB. In the eighth inning specifically, Miami scored 95 runs — the eighth-most in baseball.
And when the stakes are the highest late, the Marlins seemed to thrive. In late and close situations, defined by MLB as situations in “the seventh inning or later with the batting team ahead by one, tied, or has the tying run on base, at bat or on deck,” the Marlins had the -sixth-best OPS in all of baseball (.755) and recorded 94 RBI (fifth in MLB).
The Marlins also went 27-50 this season when the opponent scored first.
On Tuesday, the Marlins fell behind 3-0 as the Phillies grinded out lengthy at-bats against Marlins starter Jesus Luzardo, finally breaking through against him for a run in the third inning and two more in the fourth.
The Marlins scored their lone run Tuesday in the seventh inning when they strung together three hits — a double and a pair of infield singles — before being shut down the rest of the way.
“The shorter the series, I think the more important Game 1 is [to] kind of take that pressure off yourself,” Phillies shortstop Trea Turner said. “If you don’t score early [and] you don’t win, you kind of start trying harder, and that’s never necessarily a good thing.”
The Marlins are learning that now.
Josh Bell’s approach
While the Marlins’ offense as a whole struggled Tuesday, logging just seven hits and scratching across one run as they had difficultly against Phillies starter Zack Wheeler, one player had success at the plate in Josh Bell.
The first baseman, acquired at the trade deadline from the Cleveland Guardians for 2021 first-round pick Kahlil Watson and veteran infielder Jean Segura, went 3 for 4 with two doubles and scored Miami’s lone run in the seventh inning.
In 53 games with the Marlins after the trade, Bell hit .270 with nine doubles, 11 home runs, 26 RBI and 26 runs scored.
Bell has mentioned a few times recently about the importance of slowing the game down and keeping a steady heartbeat at the plate and has credited that for his success since being traded.
“That part of the reason why I have had so much success in the last couple of months,” Bell said postgame Tuesday. “[Hitting coach] Brant [Brown] sets the game plan and I’m just trying to follow it. I was able to get the ball in play a few times hard tonight, but I think that’s the thing about the postseason. Your adrenaline can spike a little bit, but if you slow things down, see the ball and just put a nice, easy swing on it, [you’ll have success]. Let them supply the power. I was able to do that.”
What history says about teams down 1-0 in wild card series
The best-of-3 format for the wild card series is in its third year, having been done before in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season and in 2022 after ratification of the latest collective bargaining agreement.
Of the 12 series that have been played, the team that won the first game of the series has advanced out of the round 10 times.
The two times the team that feel behind 1-0 early but managed to win the series both came in 2020, with the home team rallying to win the series. The second-ranked Oakland Athletics beat the seventh-ranked Chicago White Sox after losing the series opener and the fourth-seeded San Diego Padres got past the fifth-ranked St. Louis Cardinals after an early 1-0 hole.
The only other instance of a wild card series going to three games came in 2022 when the fifth-seeded San Diego Padres beat the No. 4 seed Mets. San Diego won the first game, dropped Game 2 and then won Game 3.
The other nine series have been sweeps.
This and that
▪ Marlins All-Star Luis Arraez, who this season became the first player in MLB history to win batting titles in consecutive seasons in different leagues, returned to the Marlins’ starting lineup Tuesday, batting leadoff and playing second base.
He went 1 for 4 with an eighth-inning single.
▪ The Marlins went 21-31 in series openers during the regular season. In the 31 series when they lost the opener, they went on to win Game 2 of the series 15 times and win the series overall eight times — including twice against the Phillies.
“We’re used to it,” Schumaker said. “I don’t know how many times we’ve won a first game of a series, but we end up winning the series. Hopefully that’s the case this time.”
▪ Schumaker on the Marlins facing an elimination game: “They know what’s at stake. I think they know what [Game 2] means. We’re going to do the same thing we’ve always done is go on game plan and try to beat [Aaron] Nola. That’s what we have always done, and I don’t think that’s going to change.”
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