The Cubs piled on five runs during a fifth-inning rally and cruised to victory from there, dropping Miami to 10 games below the .500 mark.
Before a Cal Quantrill start even begins, you have a good idea of when it will end. On Monday, Miami Marlins manager Clayton McCullough continued the trend of going to his bullpen before Quantrill had a chance to face the opposing lineup for a third time. Quantrill had surrendered a two-run homer earlier in the inning and the Chicago Cubs went on to score three more runs once the veteran starter was taken out. On the other side, the Marlins offense was dominated by former Fish Colin Rea, losing by a final score of 5-2.
Quantrill was coming off a good start last week, allowing one run and striking out six against the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Marlins took him out following the fifth inning in favor of left-hander Anthony Veneziano. Despite having the platoon advantage when facing Shohei Ohtani and Freddie Freeman, he allowed home runs to both of them.
At Wrigley Field, Quantrill was clean through four innings, but shortstop Dansby Swanson took him deep for his ninth home run of the season, giving the Cubs a 2-0 lead. After allowing a double to Miguel Amaya, Jon Berti lined out to Matt Mervis. When the lineup card turned over, that was McCullough’s cue to pull his pitcher.
“I think he used his cutter very well,” said manager Clayton McCullough. “Ran into some deep counts, got the pitch count elevated…He did a good job early on of limiting traffic and making some pitches in counts when he had to. Other than the one mistake there to Dansby (Swanson), he gave us chances early to stay in that game.”
Once again, Veneziano was brought in to replace Quantrill, and once again, he struggled. Kyle Tucker tripled and Seiya Suzuki homered to extend Chicago’s lead. That was the only inning of the game where the Cubs scored, but it was more than enough.
In his return off the IL, Derek Hill hit his second home run of the season in the top of the seventh inning to break up the shutout. The ball left the bat at 103.6 mph and went 399 feet to left-center.
Hill told the media earlier in the day that he wasn’t going to blame his early-season struggles on his wrist injury, but postgame, McCullough had a different opinion.
“It was definitely bothering him,” McCullough said. “He was grinding it out and then trying to stay in there and wanting to keep going…It definitely affected him. The break and the time was hopefully good. Get that thing healed up where he could just go out there again now and take the kind of swings he was taking earlier in the season.”
Quietly, rookie Cade Gibson had a very nice outing, going three shutout innings. He now has a 1.23 ERA in four appearances. He has given the Marlins a second lefty to use in addition to Veneziano, who has been worked heavily this season.
“He’s certainly not afraid,” said McCullough. “He goes out there, fills up the strike zone with multiple offerings. His ability to drop the curveball in there for strikes and he’s got his changeup behind it and used his sinker well. I think the ability to go out there and fill up the strike zone, get ahead of people, that’s what you want to see.”
With the loss, the Marlins fell to 15-25 on the season, ten games under .500 for the first time this season. They will look to even the series Tuesday night with Valente Bellozo taking the mound against Ben Brown. First pitch is at 7:40 pm.