Padres pound Marlins
3-1 loss with six double plays.
MIAMI— Pffft! That is the sound of the uplifting mojo from the Miami Marlins’ improbable comeback win that began theweekend exiting Marlins Park.
Two lackluster losses that followed against San Diego, including Sunday’s 3-1 dud, also let vital traction slip away from pursuit of their first trip to the playoffs since 2003.
The Padres clinched the series by putting the doublewhammy on Miami, turning six double plays Sunday. That is the most the Marlins have ever hit into in one game.
Miami scored only one run in the two games combined in concluding a disappointing 2-4 homestand. That against a Padres club that is 20 games under .500 and arrived having lost four of five.
Of greater significance, the Marlins are two games under .500 since the All-Star break, and that loud scraping sound is their finger nails sliding down the chalkboard listing the National League wild-card leaders.
“It’s hard to expect that you’d still be in a race playing under .500 baseball at this point. But the fact of the matter is we are in a race,” said Marlins manager DonMattingly.
“It’s something that’s still attainable. As bad as it looks right now in this little storm that we’re in, it’s still doable. That’s the one thingwe can’t get away from and can’t get rid of that belief.”
While categorizing the shortcomings of his club in losing five of its past six series, including last in the league in runs this month, Mattingly laid out the mindset that will be needed to salvage the objective over the final 32 games during a soul-searching and brutally honest postgame soliloquy that went on for more than five minutes.
“That doesn’t mean you just kind of showup, play the game and hope it happens. Youhave tomake it happen,” Mattingly said, stressing it is incumbent on himself as manager and the coaches, but foremost the players, to seize the challenge of the playoff race.
“These guys have to have quality at-bats. We have to make quality pitches when we need to make them.”
It is difficult to put together productive innings when you keep disarming them with twin-killings, as theMarlins did in becoming the first team to hit into six double plays in a nine-inning game since Tampa Bay on Aug. 7, 2013 at Arizona. Six different players contributed to the dubious feat.
It seemed every time Padres starter Luis Perdomo let a man reach base he had the Marlins right where he wanted them.
“He commanded his sinkerwell, got us to ground out,” said second baseman Dee Gordon, who hit into a double play in the third. “Hats off to him. He pitched a good game, kept us off balance.”
The rookie right-hander turned in the first complete game of his career, limiting the Futile Fish to six hits.
Perdomo (7-7) even executed a rare unassisted double play by a pitcher when he snatched Ichiro Suzuki’s liner and raced to
first to double off J.T. Realmuto.
Justin Nicolino (2-6), hastily summoned from the minors to start in place of Andrew Cashner (blister), turned in a serviceable effort on short notice, limiting the Padres to three runs in six innings.
The left-hander, in his third stint with the Marlins this season, contributed to his sixth consecutive loss by giving up two of the runs on two-out hits. The first of those was set up by a stolen base. The other by Nicolino hitting a batter and then uncorking awild pitch.
“Just a couple of two-out pitches that you’d like to have back,” Nicolino said. “Those two runs cost us right there.”
The greater blame rested with an inept offense that couldn’t solve Perdomo, who had a 6.24 ERA (albeit coming off his best outing of the season).
Timely hitting was a recurring issue on a homestand that saw Miami score
only 13 runs in six games. Seven of them were in Friday’s game when the Marlins rallied from a 6-2 deficit byscoring five timesover the final three innings on the way to a stirring walk-off win.
As to whether it might take lineup changes to get the offense on track, Mattingly said, “I guesswe could throw it in a hat and spin it around and hope that magic pops out. But you’ve been doing something all year long. I thinkwe’ve just got to get better.”
There was hope early when Xavier Scruggs’ twoout, RBI double in the secondwas the sort of clutch hit that eluded the Marlins in two 1-0 losses within four days, including Saturday.
Scruggs got to third on a wild pitch but was left there when Miguel Rojas was called out on a questionable third strike.
Mattingly pointed out that the Marlins have been fortunate that other teams in the wild-card chase have stumbled as well, including the Cardinals, Pirates, Giants, Mets and Dodgers. All of them are more experienced in playing with a purpose at this time of year.
“These aren’t teams that are just going to fold up and go away. And we can’t fold up and go away either,” Mattingly said. “We’ve got to grow up, have an approach and be ready to play.”