Marlins win third straight
Anderson gives Straily help in his first outing
MIAMI — Inside the Marlins clubhouse, Dan Straily and Miguel Rojas almost could not be farther apart. Straily occupies the first stall after entering the room, immediately to the right. Rojas is rucked away in the far corner. A pillar, a set of television and a group of couches separate the two players.
But before he made his season debut in a 8-4 Marlins win over Philadelphia on Monday night, Straily bridged the gap with his voice.
“Happy Opening Day,” he shouted across the clubhouse to Rojas.
It came before Miami won a third straight game for the first time this season, a victory that marked the Marlins’ fifth of their last six games. It also came before Brian Anderson’s 3-for-4 night, with his career-high four RBI pacing the offense and his diving catch saving the evening in front of 5,415 fans at Marlins Park. The announced attendance was the lowest in stadium history.
Straily’s shout was a welcome refrain for the Marlins, who housed a cast of unproven and inexperienced starting pitchers in their rotation through April. As Miami trotted out its rotation through the first 27 games of the season, Straily waited. A right forearm strain sidelined him for the first month of the season, pushing his 2018 debut to Monday night.
His return was the latest for a string of Marlins veterans. J.T. Realmuto came back on the last road trip. Martin Prado returned over the weekend, as did Wei-Yin
“The club is more rounded out, what we had pictured going into the season.” Don Mattingly, Marlins manager
Chen. Monday was Straily’s turn.
“The club is more rounded out, what we had pictured going into the season,” Marlins manager Don Mattingly said before the game.
Straily earned a no decision in the Miami victory, lasting just four innings and allowing four runs on six hits. He battled his command, giving up four walks. He lacked swingand-miss stuff, striking out just one Phillie.
A Marlins win looked precarious in the seventh inning, when Kyle Barraclough loaded the bases with one out and Carlos Santana at the plate. Barraclough walked two Phillies and flung a wild pitch to set the stage for Santana. On the sixth pitch of the at-bat, Santana sent a sinking line drive into right field.
Off the bat, the ball looked like it would drop for a hit, scoring two runs and tying the game at 6. Instead, Anderson made a diving catch, keeping the runners where they were and preserving a two-run cushion.
Anderson added a pair of insurance runs in the bottom half of the inning with a two-run home run about halfway up the sculpture in left-center field. It was his second homer of the season and followed a two-run double in the third inning.
Monday was Anderson’s third three-hit game of his young career, and just his second multi-hit game in his last 14 appearances.
Straily, meanwhile, was plagued by a pair of mistakes. Both were sliders. Both were launched for two-run home runs.
In the second inning, after walking Maikel Franco, Straily fed Jorge Alfaro an 82-mph slider on the inside part of the plate. Alfaro whacked it 433 feet into left-center field,
clanging it off the home run sculpture to give Philadelphia a 2-0 lead.
In the fourth inning, with the cushion of a 5-2 Marlins lead, the Phillies victimized Straily. Scott Kingery doubled before Franco golfed a low 82-mph slider past a leaping Cameron Maybin and into the third row beyond the left-field fence.
Straily’s night would end soon after. He faced just four more batters and squeezed his way out of a jam that left runners on second and third.
The outing spoiled a recent run of success from Marlins starters. In the last five games — four of them wins — Miami starting pitchers combined for a 0.92 ERA and 3.44 strikeout to walk ratio in 29 1/3 innings. During a weekend series against the Rockies, the Marlins allowed just two runs to Colorado.
Straily gave up double that in four innings. But his return to the mound not only injects experience into the Marlins rotation, but also allows younger pitchers to slot where they should to maximize growth.
“To get him back out there and get another veteran in the rotation,” Mattingly said. “We just got to get guys to where they should be, continuing to develop. Obviously, Dan’s a guy that we know will handle his starts, good or bad, and be the same guy the next day.”