Marlins swept by Braves as comeback falls short
It was unusually chilly inside Marlins Park on Sunday. Sweater weather.
Maybe they had the air conditioning cranked to full blast. Or maybe it was just the Marlins, who have been nothing but cold in their home ballpark thus far.
The Atlanta Braves, who lugged an 0-9 record with them to Miami, looked like the dynasty Braves of old, pulling off a series sweep with Sunday’s 6-5 victory in 10 innings.
Sunday’s loss by the Marlins was their fifth in a row at home, where they remain winless this season. Only the 1995 Marlins’ 0-9 start at home ranks worse.
“We’ve got to win games at home,” Marlins outfielder Christian Yelich said. “You’re supposed to own your home ballpark.”
The Marlins clawed back from a 5-0 deficit, tying it in the ninth on Ichiro Suzuki’s two-out RBI single with two strikes. But their rally went for naught in the 10th when Mallex Smith drove in the go-ahead run off Edwin Jackson.
It was Marlins starter Jarred Cosart who dug his team an early hole, allowing four runs in the first while walking five batters and throwing 54 pitches in just the first two innings.
After that, Cosart recovered nicely, holding the Braves to only an unearned run and managing to spare the bullpen extra work by getting through six innings.
“It was not mechanical, it was mental,” Cosart said.
Cosart said he felt off mechanically during his pregame warmup pitches, decided to compensate by slowing down his delivery once he took the mound for real and made the situation even worse.
By the time he figured out the mistake, the Marlins were down 4-0.
“I was a little off in my warmups, and I kind of took that out to the mound in the first inning,” he said. “I was thinking about mechanical stuff, and my delivery was really slow. I was able to figure that out — for me, a little too late.”
The Marlins hitters were also slow to get going.
Braves starter Jhoulys Chacin retired the first 10 batters before Martin Prado singled with one out in the fourth, and the Marlins didn’t get on the board until the sixth when they came up with three runs after Ichiro recorded his 2,938th hit and stole his 499th base.
Ichiro entered the game as part of a double switch and ended up having the best day of any Marlin.
The Marlins made it a one-run game in the seventh on Dee Gordon’s RBI groundout.
And they tied it in the ninth after Chris Johnson led off with a pinch-hit single. Two outs later, with Jason Grilli trying to close it out for the Braves, Ichiro drove in the tying run with his second hit of the game.
He now has 2,939 career hits, putting him four shy of tying Frank Robinson for 33rd place on the all-time list. Ichiro is trying to become only the eighth player to have at least 2,900 career hits and 500 stolen bases.
The others: Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner, Paul Molitor, Eddie Collins, Rickey Henderson, Lou Brock and Marlins hitting coach Barry Bonds.
But Ichiro’s late-inning heroics didn’t culminate in a win for the Marlins.
After retiring the first two batters, Jackson walked Drew Stubbs on a 3-2 pitch, gave up a single to Jace Peterson and then an RBI single to Smith, which drove in the deciding run.
This story was originally published April 17, 2016 at 5:10 PM with the headline "Marlins swept by Braves as comeback falls short."