Rating the draft
Omar Kelly assesses picks by the Dolphins.
MIAMI — The remedy sounded simple, but it took Caleb Smith following the recipe without wavering to earn his first major league victory and give the Miami Marlins their second consecutive series win.
Smith held the Colorado Rockies without a run while working a career-high seven innings and allowing only two singles in a tidy 3-0 win Sunday at Marlins Park.
Smith got just enough hitting support, including Miguel Rojas’ fourth homer of the season, as the Marlins took two of three from the Rockies and have won four of their past five games.
“It feels amazing, can’t put it into words how lucky and blessed I am,” said Smith, who got the lineup card and a game ball that he plans to send to his father who keeps a room with his baseball souvenirs in Huntsville, Texas.
Smith has stuck out 19 over his past two starts while walking only one — he fanned nine and issued just one free pass Sunday. He didn’t allow a runner to advance to second base.
It has been a dramatic departure from the control problems that vexed him in his first three starts when he walked 12 1⁄3 innings.
After serving five walks on the way to an exit after 2 1⁄3 innings recently in New York, Smith was given a directive.
“It was a matter of let’s attack the strike
zone,” said Marlins manager Don Mattingly, noting that Smith had no trouble throwing the ball where he wanted to in his bullpen sessions but seemed reluctant to challenge hitters in the strike zone.
“We used analytics to show him because he’s got a lot of swing and miss. He was almost elite swingand-miss amongst the league, [ranking with] guys like [Max] Scherzer. Being able to point that out to a guy and have the numbers back that up should tell him, throw the ball in the strike zone, they’re missing.”
The rookie left-hander did so in striking out 10 in six innings in Milwaukee. He took the loss though allowing only two runs.
“They told me that and everything just started clicking,” Smith said. “I was beating myself the first four starts. So, changed it up and try to let them beat me.”
Sunday, Smith faced one batter over the minimum through six innings, as he allowed two singles. Catcher Bryan Holaday threw out Ian Desmond attempting to steal.
The only hint of trouble for Smith came when he walked Desmond on a full count leading off the seventh. He got the next three hitters, finishing the day by striking out David Dahl for the third time.
Smith, who threw 91 pitches, 61 for strikes, relied mainly on his fourseam fastball. He brought the heat 58 times, topping out at 95.4 mph. He also worked in the slider 20 times, getting nine strikes on his improving breaking ball, six of them called, and mixed in an effective changeup as well.
Smith had started his career 0-4, including one loss last season with the Yankees.
Since then, “I feel super-confident, like night and day,” he said.
So is the Marlins’ staff as a whole. It was the seventh consecutive game in which the Marlins’ starter allowed two or fewer runs.
The starters have a 1.31 ERA in 41 1⁄3 innings over that span, while holding opposing batters to a .161 average.
“We talked about it with those guys in Milwaukee; it was about let’s get ahead in the count,” Mattingly said. “We walked 15 over two games there and it was like, we’ve got to throw the ball over the plate.
“The one thing you can’t defend is the walk, and giving a team 15 extra base runners over two games, you’re just not going to be able to survive that.”
Sunday’s result also continued a trend of Rockies inability to hit at Marlins Park, where they are 7-17 since it opened in 2012. As a team, Colorado is batting .215 in Little Havana.
The Rockies scored only two runs in three games and totaled 12 hits, their fewest by far in a series at Marlins Park (20, 2013).
The Marlins didn’t have great success against Rockies starter Chad Bettis, but they did enough.
Struggling rookie Lewis Brinson produced the first run with a two-out single in the second, driving a 1-2 slider the opposite way on a line to right.
Brinson is batting .163, but showed positive signs by getting hits in three consecutive games for the first time. He has reached base in eight consecutive games.
In the fourth, Rojas lofted his fourth homer 370 feet to left, just carrying into the Marlins’ bullpen. The shortstop had four homers in four seasons prior to this.
Improving to 9-18, the Marlins are playing less like the downtrodden bunch of the first few weeks of the season.
“We’re starting to find a way to win these game,” Mattingly said.