Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Marlins vs. Nationals
Stanton hits No. 53, but Miami 1-7 in last 8 games
Washington wins 7-2 in Miami.
MIAMI — Time is running out for the Miami Marlins. For all that has gone on in their past — the good, the tragic, the bad, the exciting — and all of the talent at the top of their depth chart, they face a reality that grows harsher by the day.
A 7-2 loss Monday to the Washington Nationals, the Marlins’ seventh in eight games, dropped them to 67-70 and six games back of the last playoff spot in the National League. They know their recent play is far from good enough.
“We tried to play ourselves completely out of it,” manager Don Mattingly said before the game. “We’re lucky to still be in it, honestly.”
This season the Marlins have taken the tiniest of steps backward with regard to the league and themselves. A year ago Monday, Miami was 68-69, one game better than it is now, and four games back of a wild-card spot, two better than the standyear ings now.
The 2016 Marlins endured a five-game losing streak and 5-9 stretch through the first half of
September to fall out of it completely, though they were not mathematically eliminated until the final week. The talk then was that a run on the fringe of contention, however it turned out, would provide valuable experience to the roster’s young foundation for a genuine playoff chase in a future season.
This is that future season. If there were lessons learned last September, they have not yet manifested themselves this September.
“We felt like we had an opportunity last year and we kind of didn’t really step up,” Mattingly said Monday. “I was hoping that last year’s experience, going through a pennant race and fading late, would help us. Hopefully it still will. We still got teams in front of us that we’re going to play. We’re not in position we could be, but we’re still in contention. We’ll see. We’ll see if we can rise up.”
Washington righty A.J. Cole, getting a spot start as the Nats opted to give their normal starters an extra day of rest, limited the Marlins to two runs (one earned) in 5 2⁄3 innings. The Nationals made three errors behind him, including two in the first that led to Miami’s first run, but Cole’s damage was minimal while scattering five hits and four walks.
Among those hits was Giancarlo Stanton’s 53rd home run of the year, an opposite-field shot that barely cleared the rightfield wall. He has as many homers through Sept. 4 as Roger Maris did during his 61-homer season in 1961.
Each of Stanton’s past four hits, dating to Aug. 27, have been home runs. He is 4 for 29 (.138) with six walks in that stretch.
Left-hander Adam Conley allowed three runs in four innings, lifted for a pinch-hitter in the bottom of the fourth after he had thrown 81 pitches. Anthony Rendon and Daniel Murphy homered to account for all three runs.
For the second start in a row, both against the Nationals, Conley went heavy on his changeup usage. He threw his changeup 31 percent of the time — 25 out of 81 pitches — Monday after doing so 32 percent of the time last week in Washington, when he allowed two runs in six innings. That approximately one-inthree frequency is nearly twice is season average.
Left-hander Wei-Yin Chen, on his first day off the disabled list in four months, made the first relief appearance of his major league career. He retired the side in order in the eighth.