Braves lose as Marlins pick up first home win
MIAMI — Josh Bell homered, Max Meyer allowed one run while pitching six innings, and the Miami Marlins beat the Atlanta Braves 5-1 on Saturday for their first home win of the season.
Bell hit a fly ball off Braves starter Chris Sale that sneaked over the left-field wall of a windy loanDepot Park in the first inning. It was Bell’s second home run of the season.
Meyer (2-0) continued his strong start, limiting the Braves’ high-powered offense to one run on six hits while striking out a career-high seven batters and not issuing a walk.
Meyer picked up the first win of his MLB career last Sunday, beating the St. Louis Cardinals with six innings of one-run ball while allowing just three hits. The 25-year-old Meyer, who is ranked as Miami’s third-best prospect by MLB Pipeline, missed last season recovering from Tommy John surgery.
“I felt good. I was pretty much just following (Marlins catcher Christian Bethancourt) the whole day,” Meyer said. “I liked his game plan. He really made it easy on me. We were dialed in the whole game, attacked the zone. I didn’t get as many firstpitch strikes as I wanted to, but I was able to bounce back and get some swings and misses, too.”
Bryan De La Cruz gave the Marlins a 5-0 lead with a twoout, bases-loaded double in the fifth off Sale, who recorded outs against the first two batters he faced in the inning and then allowed a single and consecutive walks. Luis Arraez, Bell and Jake Burger scored.
“That was really the only inning that kind of got away,” Sale said. “Even the following two innings, when I was still kind of steaming, I felt like my command was there. For whatever reason that one inning, it fell apart. I wasn’t able to limit the damage.”
De La Cruz has a hit in 12 of Miami’s 15 games this season and leads the club in hits with 17, two of which came Saturday.
“This is who we are, actually,” De La Cruz said through a translator. “If you see the way we play out there as a unit — this is actually the way we play the game. This is what actually got us to the playoffs last year. And that’s what we’re trying to emulate.”
Austin Riley hit a leadoff triple off Meyer in the sixth and scored on a groundout by Marcell Ozuna. The Atlanta designated hitter extended his hitting streak to 12 games with a leadoff single in the second.
Right-handed pitcher Calvin Faucher, who was recalled from Triple-A Jacksonville ahead of the game, replaced Meyer and pitched a perfect seventh. Anthony Bender was perfect in the eighth, and Tanner Scott rounded out a solid bullpen showing for the Marlins, recording the final three outs.
Sale (1-1) allowed five hits and five runs with seven strikeouts and three walks over seven innings.
The Marlins were 0-8 at home entering Saturday’s game.
“It’s not like we’re going to stop playing hard and stop fighting,” Marlins manager Skip Schumaker said. “I know it’s not what everybody wants the start to be, but that’s a really good team that we have out there.”
Atlanta, the six-time reigning National League East champion, won Friday’s opener between division foes 8-1. In Sunday’s rubber match, the Braves will send right-hander Charlie Morton (1-0, 3.18 ERA) to the mound as the Marlins counter with left-hander Jesús Luzardo (0-2, 7.20).