Two Stanton homers can’t boost Marlins
Miami falls to 10-17 against Braves in last two seasons.
ATLANTA — Giancarlo Stanton launched one R.A. Dickey knuckleball 477 feet off the batter’s eye in center. He hit another 424 feet into the leftfield bleachers. But the Marlins didn’t make the most of his wallops, losing 5-3 to the Braves on Friday.
The Marlins and Adam Conley were done in by sloppy fielding and a Nick Markakis home run that sealed yet another loss to a division rival that has given them nothing but fits. The Marlins are 10-17 against the rebuilding Braves the last two seasons.
And Atlanta’s new SunTrust Park is proving to be just as unkind to the Marlins as Turner Field was for 20 years. The Marlins have lost three of their first four games in the Braves’ new stadium.
Stanton found it to his liking Friday. He clubbed Dickey’s first pitch in the fourth for his longest home run of the season and the longest in SunTrust Park history. He added a two-run homer off another Dickey knuckleball in the sixth to give the Marlins a 3-1 lead.
The home runs were the 34th and 35th for Stanton, leaving him seven shy of Gary Sheffield’s team record.
But the lead was brief for the Marlins.
Brandon Phillips shot a ball under second baseman Dee Gordon’s glove that was ruled a single. Markakis later followed with a three-run homer off Conley, who gave up an unearned run following errors by Gordon and shortstop Miguel Rojas.
With a pinch-hit single in the eighth, Ichiro Suzuki moved past Craig Biggio for 22nd on the all-time list with his 3,061st major league hit.
Volquez’s future cloudy: Edinson Volquez made his way back to the mound after his first Tommy John surgery in 2009. But after undergoing the same procedure for a second time Friday, the future is less certain for the Marlins’ 34-year-old righthander.
According to a 2015 medical study, the success rate isn’t as encouraging for pitchers who have Tommy John a second time. And those pitchers who manage to make it back aren’t as effective as they were previously.
“Although a second surgery may not be career-ending, it appears to be career-limiting by virtue of a decreased workload and pitching productivity,” said Dr. Vasilio Moutzouros, an orthopedic surgeon who was involved in a Henry Ford Hospital study that examined pitchers who had Tommy John.
While about 75 percent of all major league pitchers who have elbow ligament replacement surgery are able to pitch again, the figure drops to about 65 percent for those who require it a second time.
The Henry Ford study showed that walk rates escalated for second-time surgery recipients, while innings pitched declined by about half compared to those who had Tommy John performed once.
“And for those who return to the major league level, they experience a mixed bag of performance levels,” Moutzouros said. “In several categories, their performance declines significantly.”
Volquez isn’t a young pitcher, either.
“And then he’s a little older, too,” said manager Don Mattingly. “So it puts him in a different spot.”
Former Marlins pitcher Josh Johnson never made it back after undergoing Tommy John a second time, and even had the procedure performed a third time to no avail.
The typical recovery time is 12 to 14 months.
Volquez, who signed a twoyear $22 million contract last winter, has one year remaining on a deal that calls for him to make $13 million next season.