Growing pains on Opening Day for Marlins
Everybody remembers their first Opening Day, though not always
fondly.
Manager Don Mattingly’s first home opener as a Yankee in 1983 saw the first baseman try to pick a ball in the dirt and have it flip up over his head, and later couldn’t handle a bad hop on a potential double-play ball in a 13-2 loss to the Tigers.
“It wasn’t great at all getting booed at Yankee Stadium,” he recalled before Thursday’s 27th Opening Day in Marlins franchise history. “I don’t think [those two plays] were my fault, but it was that kind of day. But you know what? It’s good to start at the bottom and work your way up, and I started at the bottom that day.”
His Marlins are like that now. Starting at the bottom. Starting over, really. Trying to work their way up.
Like waiting for children to grow or wine to mature, it may take some years. Some
crowd of 25,423.
“We know that there’s not a guy in that clubhouse who doesn’t want to be here,” Mattingly said at a pregame news conference. “I think that’s important moving forward. We want guys to want to play in Miami and be proud of what this organization is doing.”
The luster of Opening Day can only last so long, and for the Marlins it lasted until the top of the fourth inning. Miami (0-1) committed two errors in the frame and allowed four runs to the Rockies. Without almost any semblance of an offense against Colorado starting pitcher Kyle Freeland, the Marlins couldn’t recover.
By the top of the fourth inning, Miami still hadn’t yet had a baserunner. The Marlins also, however, managed to keep the Rockies (1-0) off the scoreboard.
Nolan Arenado began the frame with a double to left, then infielder Miguel Rojas fielded a ground ball at shortstop and winged a routine throw over converted-third baseman Martin Prado’s head at first base to let Arenado get to third. Outfielder David Dahl followed with a single to right field to break the scoreless tie with Miami.
Two batters later, Lewis Brinson made another gaffe in center field. Ryan McMahon knocked a single to center, and Brinson whiffed while trying to scoop up the rolling ball. McMahon raced all the way to third base, then catcher Chris Ianetta drove him home with a double to center. Quickly, a scoreless tie became a 4-0 deficit and the Marlins, for the first time in 2019, were booed in Miami.
“Everybody likes to get their season off and running, but I’m not sure that’s really going to be the tale of our season,” Mattingly said after the game. “The tale’s going to be who we are through the course of the year.”
José Ureña, starting on Opening Day for the second year in a rowfor the Marlins, only lasted another inning. The starting pitcher coughed up two more runs in the top of the fifth, including a solo home run by Trevor Story, and Mattingly pulled him with the Marlins down 6-0. In 4 innings, Urena (0-1) allowed four earned runs and struck out two batters.
Ureña also battled through some left leg tightness after a line drive hit him on the inside of the knee. Even as his velocity dropped, the right-handed pitcher stayed in the game.
“I was getting a little tight, but besides that we tried to keep doing the thing,” Ureña said. “I felt fine, just a little bit of swelling, but besides that I felt fine.”
For Colorado, Freeland (1-0) dominated his first Opening Day start. A year after finishing fourth in Cy Young Award voting, the left-handed pitcher surrendered just two hits and one run in seven innings, striking out five and walking one.
“He kept us off the bases early,” Mattingly said. “We weren’t able to really put anything together.”
The only run he allowed came in the bottom of the sixth, when the Marlins turned to JT Riddle as a pinch hitter and the shortstop launched a solo home run over the right-field fence.
Two innings later, utility man Neil Walker came off the bench to do the same, then, in the bottom of the ninth, catcher Jorge Alfaro slammed another homer out to right.
After so much went wrong early, Miami’s offense came alive for three unanswered runs to close out Game 1. Now 161 more to go. “We’re throwing the expectations out the window,” Walker said after the game. “Actually, we’re embracing and happy that teams are looking past us, and I think that’s going to be a strength for us.”