Lopez fans a career high of 11 in one-run loss
Pablo Lopez’s tremendous start to the 2022 season reached another new height Friday.
The Miami Marlins couldn’t capitalize.
Lopez struck out a career-high 11 batters while giving up just one run over seven innings, but the Marlins gave up the goahead run in the ninth and dropped their series opener 2-1 to the Milwaukee Brewers at loanDepot park.
Miami is now 14-18 and has now lost 11 one-run games. Milwaukee is 21-12.
With the game tied 1-1 entering the ninth, the Brewers loaded the bases against left-hander Tanner Scott on a Christian Yelich single, a Luis Urias hit-bypitch and a Tyrone Taylor pinch-hit single before an out was recorded.
Marlins manager Don Mattingly then pulled
Scott for Anthony Bender.
Bender struck out Hunter Renfroe on three pitches for the first out before issuing a four-pitch walk to Jace Peterson to force in the go-ahead run. Bender then struck out Lorenzo Cain and got Victor Caratini to ground out to first to limit the damage to one run.
But Milwaukee’s Josh Hader held the Marlins in check in the ninth, getting Jazz Chisholm Jr. and
Jesus Aguilar to ground out before Jorge Soler hit a flyball in foul territory that Renfroe caught in right to end the game and allow Hader to pick up his 13th save in as many opportunities this season.
It spoiled a gem from Lopez.
The 26-year-old righty gave up his lone run two pitches into the night before serving up one of the starts of his career. He left an 87.6 mph cutter over the heart of the plate for Kolten Wong, who sent the pitch a projected 366 feet to right field.
After that? Lopez was
nearly untouchable. Just three of the remaining 24 Brewers who Lopez faced reached base — Urias on a Brian Anderson two-out fielding error in the first, Cain on a two-out double in the second and Renfroe on a two-out single in the seventh.
Lopez recorded at least one strikeout in six of his seven innings. He struck out the top of the Brewers’ lineup — Wong, Willy Adames and Yelich — in order in the third and recorded multiple strikeouts in the fifth, sixth and seventh innings.
Nine of Lopez’s 11
strikeouts came on his changeup, the pitch that is now responsible for 26 of his 46 strikeouts this season.
But Lopez was matched practically pitch for pitch by the Brewers’ Corbin Burnes, the reigning National League Cy Young Award winner. Burnes struck out seven over seven innings and also gave up just one run — a Jesus Aguilar game-tying home run in the third.
ANDERSON RETURNS, WENDLE TO IL
Some good news and some bad news on the injury front.
The good: Brian Anderson is back from his brief stint on the injured list for undisclosed reasons.
The bad: Joey Wendle is on the 10-day IL with a right hamstring strain.
Anderson started at third base Friday after being off the active roster for a week. While the Marlins didn’t say what caused the IL stint, the fact that he was able to return in fewer than 10 days and his circumstances while sidelined make it clear it was related to COVID-19.
Also, the virus-related IL does not have a minimum amount of time a player must be sidelined.
Anderson said he was quarantined in his San Diego hotel room before rejoining the team in Phoenix on Tuesday.
“It was the same thing as the quarantine in 2020,” Anderson said. “Throwing against a pillow. Stuff like that. Just trying to keep mentally engaged and stay with the team as much as I can mentally. And then physically, do prison workout —push-ups, sit-ups, stuff like that.”
He took ground balls and hit before the game Tuesday and Wednesday at Chase Field before flying back to South Florida to play in a rehab game with the Single A Jupiter Hammerheads on Thursday.
“.... Just being able to see some live pitching, get back in the field, I felt good,” he said.
Wendle left the Marlins’ win over the Diamondbacks on Wednesday when his hamstring tightened up. It’s the same hamstring that forced Wendle to miss games last homestand.
“The fact that it’s the same leg,” manager Don Mattingly said, ‘it’s like, ‘OK, let’s get rid of this.’ ”
Another factor: The Marlins are playing with a three-man bench. If Wendle stayed on the active roster but couldn’t play, it would have left Mattingly with just two position players available off the bench.
“It’s almost impossible to play with a two-man [bench],” Mattingly said. “You can do it, but it’s not conducive to really making any kind of good decisions.”
OPEN ROOF
For the first time this season, the Marlins opened loanDepot park’s retractable roof for a game.
The Marlins had the roof open only twice last season: April 5 and 6, 2021, against the St. Louis Cardinals.