Marlins beat Atlanta
Catcher J.T. Realmuto impresses in 4-1 win.
ATLANTA — If the remaining weeks of the Miami Marlins’ season are a bit of an experiment, trying different pieces in different places to see what might make sense in the year and years to come, consider their 4-1 win Sunday over the Atlanta Braves a success.
J.T. Realmuto, perhaps the most athletic catcher in baseball, made his first start at first base and looked quite capable. He handled himself in the field, including an overthe-shoulder catch in shallow right, and was his typically productive self at the plate, going 2 for 4 with a homer.
“It’s different nothaving to go throwyour [catching] gear on after making the third out. It’s kind of nice not having to do that,” Realmuto said. “I haven’t even taken a ground ball since spring training. I wasn’t really sure howitwas going to go, but Iwas just going tohave fun with itand it endedup working out.”
The Marlins paired Realmuto and Marcell Ozuna’s back-to-back homers in the first with another strong outing fromrighthander Jose Urena (six innings, one run) to salvage the weekend series. They beat the Braves for the fourth time in 11 games this season.
The long balls came against Atlanta righty Lucas Sims, who in his second major league start settled in to allowno additional runs in six innings.
Realmuto impressed, particularly early. After homering in the first, he recorded the second out of the second inning onTyler Flowers’ chip shot to right. Realmuto put his head down, sprinted to where he thought it would land and looked up just in time to catch it — an outfield youth-baseball drill, he said.
“That play he makes over his shoulder early, nobody makes that [catch] onour club,” managerDon Mattingly said. “And I think that’s one of the advantages. You feel like he’s as good as anybody we have over there. You’re comfortable with [him] out there. So I think we will see a little bit more of it to get him some at bats.”
Realmuto playing first was a spring-training experiment that didn’t materialize into much once the games started counting. It was meant merely to offer an extra degree of flexibility for the Marlins’ short bench, not serve as an indication of Realmuto’s defensive fate.
But before Sunday, he had played there just once previously, two innings in a blowout loss inMay. After an impressive completeshowing, it wouldn’t surprise to see Realmuto get more time there.
Why not?
Starter Justin Bour is expected to be out at least into September with a strained right oblique. Backup TylerMoore had a slash line of .132/.209/.184 in the second half entering Sunday. Tomas Telis, another catcher who sometimes plays first, dropped a pickoff attempt Saturday and hasn’t made much of an argument with his bat.
If nothing else, theMarlins at least were able to keep Realmuto’s bat in the lineup on a day he usually has off (a Sunday day game after a Saturday night game) while not making him crouch behind the plate all afternoon. After a heavy workload in the season’s first four months, limiting Realmuto’s day-to-day physical strain would be a move made with an eye toward 2018.
“He’s still our catcher,” Mattingly said. He’s not going to be a guy over there three days aweek, or anything like that. He’s pretty much our catcher. But I think it is away to get him off his legs. A day game like today.”
Realmuto expressed the same expectation.
“I hope it doesn’t affect any catching. It won’t affect catching,” Realmuto said. “I want to catch every day I can and then just periodically on one of my off days, instead of getting an off day, play first.”