‘Bottom feeders’ feast
Once-maligned Marlins sweep into division series
CHICAGO — Garrett Cooper homered against Yu Darvish in a two-run seventh, hard-throwing rookie Sixto Sanchez dominated for five innings and the Marlins won their first playoff series in 17 years, beating the Cubs 2-0 Friday to complete a two-game wild card series sweep.
The Marlins will face the Braves in the NL Division Series in Houston starting Tuesday.
Led by manager Don Mattingly and CEO Derek Jeter, the Marlins remained unbeaten in all seven postseason series they have played following triumphs in the 1997 and 2003 NL Championship and World Series.
“The one thing that we talked about us all year was why not us?” Mattingly said. “With this kind of pitching, you can do anything. You feel like you’ve got a good shot at kind of stopping almost anybody if you make pitches.”
The Marlins lost 105 games in 2019 and became the first team to reach the playoffs after a 100-loss season. The Marlins finished second in the NL East at 31-29 being beset by a virus outbreak early this season that forced
18 players from the field following the opening series and prevented them from playing for more than a week.
Miami had T-shirts with “Bottom Feeders” in its dugout Friday, a reference to a remark by Ricky Bottalico, a former Phillies pitcher and current NBC Sports Philadelphia analyst, after the Marlins’ openingday win in Philadelphia.
“I want to thank Ricky Bottalico for that motivation,” said closer Brandon Kintzler, who after allowing a leadoff double in the ninth, struck out the next three batters, including pinch hitter Jason Kipnis swinging on a 2-2
pitch to end the game.
The Cubs, the NL Central champions, went 3 for 27 (.111) with runners on base in the series. Javier Baez, Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo combined to go 0-for-12 Friday and finished the series 1-for-24.
“Just numb,” Rizzo said.
Cooper gave the Marlins a 1-0 lead with two out in the seventh with a drive into the seats beyond the left-field wall.
Matt Joyce doubled off the glove of diving center fielder Ian Happ, and Miguel Rojas chased Darvish with an RBI single.