Marlins’ ninth-inning rally falls short in loss
WASHINGTON, D.C. When the Miami Marlins blew a mid-game lead Thursday, they not only offered the Nationals a chance to win yet another game, but also volunteered to serve as testers in Washington’s preOctober experiment.
Brandon Kintzler, Ryan Madson and Sean Doolittle — high-end relievers acquired by the Nats in advance of last week’s trade deadline to strengthen their most glaring weakness, the bullpen — shut the Marlins down in the late innings. Three innings, 10 batters, no runs.
The Marlins lost, 3-2. Their ninth-inning rally fell just short when Dee Gordon’s line drive to left field was caught by Andrew Stevenson to end the game. Miguel Rojas, who had doubled, was stranded at third base.
Nationals center fielder Brian Goodwin hit a gamewinning homer in the eighth inning against Junichi Tazawa.
Kintzler and Madson got their reps in when it was a tie game, two Nationals runs in the sixth against righthander Dan Straily making the circumstances just right for an early run with their new triumvirate. After Goodwin’s blast, Doolittle entered for the save, which he recorded in 13 pitches.
Despite another loss, three in four games this week against the NL East leaders, the Marlins didn’t play particularly poorly Thursday.
Straily allowed two runs in 5 innings. He allowed one baserunner in the first five frames — a Matt Wieters single — but was knocked around in the sixth. Brian Goodwin got the Nats on the board with a bullet ground ball to right field to score a run, and Bryce Harper tied it with a line drive off the wall in right-center field.
When Straily walked the next batter, Ryan Zimmerman, on five pitches, manager Don Mattingly called on left-hander Jarlin Garcia, who got Daniel Murphy to ground out to end the inning.
For Straily, it was the second start in a row in which he pitched five shutout only to find trouble in the sixth. On Thursday, though, his final inning wasn’t necessarily much different than the first bunch.
The Marlins jumped out to a two-run lead courtesy of a home run from Giancarlo Stanton in the third inning. Gordon, taking off from first base with the pitch, paused his trot around the bases short of second to watch it fly. The long ball was Stanton’s 39th of the year, three away from the Marlins’ single-season record.
That was all Miami managed against Nats righty Tanner Roark, who scattered four hits and five walks in six innings.