Marlins play arguably most complete game in recent memory
Dee Gordon’s 16-pitch at-bat. Martin Prado’s pinch-hit sacrifice fly. Derek Dietrich’s two-out RBI single. The bullpen’s four scoreless innings in relief of Jose Fernandez.
Add it all up, and the Marlins played arguably their most complete game in recent memory when they squeaked out a close win over the Mets on Tuesday.
“That game doesn’t get won last year,” Giancarlo Stanton said. “I feel like there were a lot of games last year where we just waited to lose rather than try to win. Something [always] went wrong.”
That wasn’t the case Tuesday.
On a bitter cold night at Citi Field, a night when the Mets’ Noah Syndergaard was throwing a gem, the Marlins somehow prevailed in a 2-1 victory.
It wasn’t one or two Marlins players who made the difference. Nearly every one of the 16 Marlins who showed up in the box score made some sort of meaningful contribution.
“It wasn’t one through nine,” Stanton said of the individual contributions. “It was one through 15 or 16. That’s huge. That’s what it’s going to need to be.”
HIT, OR NOT A HIT?
Ichiro Suzuki beat out an infield single Tuesday to move past Barry Bonds — the Marlins’ hitting coach — on the all-time hit list. But Suzuki said that the throw beat him to the bag and he should have been ruled out.
The Mets didn’t challenge the call because, as the play continued, Dietrich was thrown out at the plate for the third out of the seventh inning.
“That’s how the rules work,” Suzuki said.
The hit was the 2,936th of Suzuki’s major-league career. That put him one ahead of Bonds on the all-time list.
Although Suzuki was credited with a hit that should have been called the other way, he said he has lost many a hit over his career — before the advent of replay — on bang-bang plays in which he was safe but called out.
How many?
“Probably into the, not hundreds, but maybe in the tens and twenties — somewhere in there,” Suzuki said.
Suzuki doubled in four at-bats Wednesday to move within 63 hits of 3,000.
▪ Christian Yelich has a seven-game hitting streak to start the season after going 2 for 4 on Wednesday.
▪ The Marlins went just 1 for 9 with runners in scoring position Wednesday. They went into the lead leading the majors with a .379 average with runners in scoring position.
COMING UP
▪ Thursday: Off.
▪ Friday: Marlins LHP Wei-Yin Chen (0-0, 9.00) vs. Atlanta Braves RHP Williams Perez (0-0, 7.71), 7:10 p.m., Marlins Park.
▪ Saturday: Marlins RHP Tom Koehler (0-1, 2.84) vs. Atlanta Braves RHP Bud Norris (0-2, 6.00), 7:10 p.m., Marlins Park.
This story was originally published April 13, 2016 at 7:46 PM with the headline "Marlins play arguably most complete game in recent memory."