MIAMI, FL—After a very rough 3-8 road trip, the Marlins returned home looking to turn the page and get back to playing up to their usual standards. Unfortunately, mental errors on the mound and in the field caused the Marlins to fall to the St. Louis Cardinals Monday night by a final score of 8-3.
“Not great,” said Marlins manager Clayton McCullough. “This was not a very pretty brand of baseball tonight. When the game was invented, this is not how it was drawn up, so ugly. We gave up far too many free bases, didn’t handle our chances. We had at least people get on base, but then you also think about the number of pitches your pitchers have to throw, start to stress them out more. We just did not take care of the routine at times tonight. We gave up too many extra bases and free bases to St Louis tonight, so we deserved to lose this game.”
Eury Pérez was on the wrong side of history, becoming the first pitcher in franchise history to throw four wild pitches in a game. He finished the night going 4 ⅓ innings, allowing three runs (one earned) on two hits, four walks and struck out six. His four walks marks a season-high.
Pérez’s fastball averaged 98.1 mph, topping out at 99.4 mph. It generated five whiffs and two of his strikeouts came on that pitch. He threw his fastball for strikes 80% of the time, but could not consistently locate his secondary stuff, landing only 53% of those pitches for strikes .
On the bright side, Pérez posted a 60.0% ground ball rate and generated 14 total whiffs.
The first of many bad plays happened in the first inning on a pop-up behind home plate. AgustÃn RamÃrez took a couple moments to find the ball and couldn’t recover in time to catch it. Although it did not lead to runs being scored, it extended the plate appearance and increased the workload for Pérez.
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Pérez held the Cardinals scoreless until the top of the fifth inning. Things began to unravel with one out and a 2-0 lead when rookie outfielder Nathan Church hit a grounder towards second baseman Maximo Acosta, who was making his MLB debut. Attempting to flip the ball to second for a force out, Acosta was unable to field it cleanly and was charged with an error. After another wild pitch from Pérez moved Pedro Pages to third and Church to second, Lars Nootbaar drove in the Cardinals’ first run of the game.
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Pérez threw his fourth wild pitch of the game and went on to walk Iván Herrera before leaving the game. Ronny Henriquez, who hadn’t pitched since last Tuesday against the Guardians, entered in relief with the bases loaded. He surrendered an RBI single to Alec Burleson and Wilson Contreras drove Nootbaar in on a sac fly. The Cardinals took a 3-2 lead.
With the game tied at three apiece in the seventh, Herrera hit a deep but routine fly ball to Dane Myers, but Myers took his eye off the ball and didn’t make the catch, allowing Herrera to reach second. He was driven in by Burleson as the Cardinals retook a 4-3 lead.
Even late in the game, the sloppiness continued. In the top of the ninth inning, with runners on the corners, AgustÃn RamÃrez allowed his 11th passed ball of the season, which allowed pinch-runner Garrett Hampson to score an insurance run. Nolan Gorman hit his 12th home run of the season, extending the lead to 8-3.
“Gus is going to have to continue to improve behind the plate,” said McCullough. “We believe that we’ve seen strides made this year. The controlling of the baseball, the blocking game and throwing becoming more consistent are areas that Gus still needs to work on and he’s shown a commitment to continuing to work to improve those. Like many young developing players, there are going to be moments. There are going to be games that just aren’t as pretty as others and that is the nature of the learning curve that all young players go through at the major league level.”
Jakob Marsee‘s successful run continued on Monday, driving in the first run of the game on a sac fly in the bottom of the first inning. In the sixth inning, Marsee knocked in an RBI double to tie the game.
Going into this game, Eric Wagaman was slashing .235/.333/.529/.863 in the month of August. In the fourth inning, Wagaman took Cardinals starter Matthew Liberatore deep. It is the first time this season that he has homered in back-to-back games.
With the loss, the Marlins are now 59-66 on the season. Edward Cabrera toes the rubber on Tuesday against Michael McGreevy as the Fish look to even the series. First pitch is at 6:40 pm.