Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Urena’s misery continues
Atlanta’s bats batter starter to make him 0-8 at home
MIAMI — Run support wasn’t the culprit this time in keeping Jose Urena winless at home this season.
Granted, the Marlins continued a trend of not generating much offense with the Dominican righthander on the mound. But Monday’s 12-1 thrashing by the Braves was a clear case of Urena not giving his team much of a chance against their division rival.
Urena served home runs to Freddie Freeman and Dansby Swanson in the first two innings, which got the Braves’ offense firing early on the way to 16 hits, eight of them for extra bases.
It was a thorough thrashing that long-time Atlanta resident and former heavyweight champ Evander Holyfield, seated in the second row near the Marlins dugout, could appreciate.
It was the second consecutive start that Urena allowed five runs while lasting only four innings. The loss dropped him to 0-8 in 13 starts at home this season. He hasn’t won at Marlins Park since Sept. 20 against the Mets.
Urena hasn’t had much success against Atlanta in his career, now
2-6 with a 5.91 ERA in 13 appearances. That includes losses in all three starts this season with a 6.75 ERA.
Urena had allowed only one homer in his previous five outings. But he hung a slider to Freeman, a notorious Marlins nemesis, who reached outside the zone and drove the 3-2 offering the opposite way to leftcenter for a two-run homer.
The homer was the 21st in 132 games against the Marlins for Freeman, who has taken over the mantle of Braves Hall-of-Famer Chipper Jones, another one-man wrecking crew against Miami (40 homers, .297 average in 247 games).
That’s Freeman’s second-most homers against an opponent, one fewer than he has hit against the Mets.
Freeman had a double in the third, sparking a tworun, two-out rally.
The Braves also struck with two outs in the second when Dansby Swanson bent his eighth homer of the season around the foul pole in left. It was another slider that Urena left up, this one over the heart of the plate.
Justin Bour’s 16th homer leading off the second was the only Marlins run.
Urena came into the game with an average of 2.73 runs of support, the lowest among National League starters (minimum 19 starts).
The Marlins loaded the bases with three consecutive one-out singles in the fourth but didn’t get a run out of it. Derek Dietrich, batting for Urena, struck out on three pitches, looking at lefty Sean Newcomb’s 95-mph fastball to leave them loaded.
Urena’s ineffectiveness snapped a string of quality starts by Marlins starters since the All-Star break. Dan Straily, Pablo Lopez and Trevor Richards each allowed only one run while going six or more innings in the Tampa Bay series.
The Braves added four runs in three innings off Ben Meyer and three more off Brett Graves. They scored in all but two innings.
This was the first of 12 games the Marlins play in the second half against the Braves, a team Miami aims to emulate in their rebuilding effort. After losing 90-plus games in each of the past three seasons, the Braves are 54-43 and battling the Phillies, another team on a dramatic turnaround, for the NL East lead.
“You see the talent and you hear about the young guys coming and things like that,” Marlins manager Don Mattingly said before the game. “They have a nice little mixture of young and old. They’ve got good arms. They’re a good club.”