Timely late-inning hitting
Club needs to string together some wins to get in wildcard race
MIAMI— In the micro, the MiamiMarlins’ grand plan came together quite nicely Tuesday night in a 6-3 win over the Mets. Ichiro Suzuki and Christian Yelich had big hits late, Dan Straily pitched five goodenough innings, and manager Don Mattingly’s most trusted relievers, with a brief blip, closed it out for the next four at Marlins Park.
In the macro, the Marlins’ grand plan … well, they’re working on it. A day after the club traded AdeinyHechavarria, the first of what could be several noteworthy players shipped out this summer, therewas a widespread acknowledgment of theMarlins’ reality: The standings and calendar make for an ugly picture.
If they’re going to climb back in it, all the Marlins can do is win that day’s game. On Tuesday, they accomplished that.
“Whenyouhave aMay likewe had, we’re not really afforded any other bad stretches,” Mattingly said Tuesday afternoon. “You have to be consistently winning two out of three all theway through. That’s thewaywe have to look at it. We can’t allow this series to be a down series. We can’t afford anything on the road to be down. We have to keep marching.”
It’s no secret, of course, where the Marlins are in the playoff picture— double-digit games back in the NL East and about the same in the wild card — andMattingly said
there’ s no real need for any sort of dramatic teamwide meeting.
Instead, he and his staff remind their players in quieter settings — hitters’ and pitchers’ meetings at the start of each series, for example, or in individual conversations.
The Marlins understand the degree of urgency required.
“These guys know where we’re at,” Mattingly said. “We’ve seen the confidence in them, the way we’re hanging in there with whoever we play. I think we knowthat where we sit, guys do look at the standings. They look at the wild card. They look at all that kind of stuff.”
Miami’s winning rally Tuesday came in the seventh. Ichiro put the Marlins up with a pinch-hit single to left, and Yelich’s bases-loaded single up the middle scored two more.
That more than undid the damage Travis d’Arnaud inflicted in the top of the inning, homering off Kyle Barraclough to tie it.
Straily pitched five innings and allowed two innings, one of them on Curtis Granderson’ s homer off the right-field foul pole on the second pitch of the game. It could have been worse for Straily, who in the third inning stranded runners at second and third by striking out Yoenis Cespedes looking at a fastball on the outer edge of the zone.
The Marlins scored three times in the first against Mets righty Robert Gsellman (three innings, three runs). Justin Bour hammered a single over the shift to right field for two, then scored all the way from first when Martin Prado doubled into the left-field corner.