Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Tazawa gives up grand slam
Marlins’ starter Dan Straily forced from game with injured arm
MIAMI — Junichi Tazawa hung his head and blew out a big breath as he walked off the field Monday night, boos raining down and lead gone in an instant.
Miami Marlins manager Don Mattingly had trusted him with a slim lead and the sixth inning against the Houston Astros. Tazawa responded with an erratic series of plate appearances that climaxed with a grand slam from Yuli Gurriel.
The Marlins lost, 7-2, and this time Tazawa was the bad guy, though Miami’s other relievers did not fare particularly well either. Miami has lost 15 times in 19 games and sunk 10 games behind the NL Eastleading Washington Nationals.
After his inning, Tazawa had a conversation with pitching coach Juan Nieves before heading into the home clubhouse with a trainer. There was no immediate word on what, if anything, was physically wrong with Tazawa.
In the box scores this year, there has been plenty wrong with Tazawa. He has allowed at least one run in eight of his 16 appearances — most of them low-pressure spots — though Monday night was the first time he allowed multiple.
Tazawa has a 6.60 ERA and 1.82 WHIP. The Marlins signed him to a two-year, $12 million deal last winter with designs on him — after years of serving as a setup man of diminishing quality in the American
League — being a piece of Miami’s so-called super bullpen.
The reality Monday didn’t match the on-paper version. Starting with the top of the order of perhaps the best team in baseball, Tazawa loaded the bases quickly: strikeout, double, fly out, walk, hit-by-pitch. That brought up Gurriel, a 32-year-old rookie and a Cuban defector, who hammered a 93.6-mph fastball over the heart of the plate.
Spurring the bullpen implosion was a line drive off the bat of Evan Gattis in the fifth inning. Marlins righty Dan Straily was cruising — allowing no hits through four innings — when Gattis’ 108-mph comebacker caught his right forearm. A mound visit from Mattingly, trainers and teammates gave way to a couple of practice pitches. Straily flexed a few times and signaled thumbs-up.
He finished that inning, but allowed two line drives on a night that had been full of soft Houston contact. After laying down a sacrifice bunt in the bottom of the inning, Straily exited in favor of Tazawa.
Straily’s line: five innings, no runs, one hit, one walk, 63 pitches and one bruise.
The Astros added two runs against Brad Ziegler in the seventh and one in the ninth against Dustin McGowan.
The Marlins offense failed to capitalize on its early chances. In the third, J.T. Riddle singled but got thrown out at second and Dee Gordon singled but got picked off first. In the fourth, Miami loaded the bases with two outs, but Derek Dietrich grounded out to first.
Miami came through in the fifth, when Christian Yelich’s two-out linedrive single scored Riddle, and the eighth, when Justin Bour homered to right-center.
The long ball was Bour’s fourth in five games.