While most Americans were celebrating a national holiday on Monday, the Miami Marlins were stressed out. In the morning, they placed right-hander Edward Cabrera on the 15-day IL due to a right elbow sprain, likely ending his exciting 2025 season and putting 2026 in jeopardy as well. Things didn’t get any better on the field as they were shut out by the Washington Nationals and limited to a season-low two hits, losing Xavier Edwards to an ejection mere minutes after first pitch and then removing Derek Hill due to right hamstring discomfort.

Cabrera, who last started for the Marlins on Saturday, has posted a 3.57 ERA, 3.68 FIP, 9.8 K/9 and 2.9 BB/9 through a career-high 128 ⅔ innings pitched.

“He’s had a remarkable season,” said McCullough. “The stretch of starts that we got from him, it was over months of time that he put himself as arguably one of the best pitchers in the National League from a performance standpoint. We saw the consistency I think everyone had been hoping for out of Cabby. He proved to himself that he can go out and pitch at a really high level at the major leagues over a stretch of time. Great season for Cabby. We’ll wait to get further information on what next steps will be, but it certainly won’t put a damper on the productive season that he had for us.”

Frankly, it was a boring game. Edwards’ ejection would have to be considered the top Marlins highlight because of how manager Clayton McCullough came to his defense.

After grounding out in the top of the first inning, Miami’s leadoff hitter continued to exchange words with home plate umpire Brennan Miller. “(Edwards) had something to say as he ran across the field,” McCullough explained postgame. “Wasn’t happy with his second strike call and said some more from the dugout. Brennan had heard enough.”

Despite loudly cursing out Miller, McCullough was allowed to remain in the game. The rookie skipper has been ejected two previous times this season.

Ryan Gusto was originally lined up to work on Monday, but recently landed on the IL with an injury of his own, so it turned into a bullpen game for the Marlins.

Serving as an opener, Lake Bachar lasted two innings and allowed the lone two runs of the day. Bachar surrendered an RBI triple to Washington Nationals rookie Daylen Lile, followed by a sac fly, which drove in Lile.

After Bachar, the Marlins went with Cade Gibson, Seth Martinez, Michael Petersen and George Soriano, all of whom prevented the Nationals from extending their lead. Petersen was making his Marlins season debut.

On the flip side, left-hander Andrew Alvarez impressed in his first-ever major league appearance. Alvarez’s no-hitter was broken up by Victor Mesa Jr. in the fifth inning. Heriberto Hernández smacked his tenth double of the season in the seventh inning. That was it. Alvarez earned the win by going five shutout innings, allowing one hit, two walks and striking out four.

“From the start, it really wasn’t a good offensive approach,” McCullough said. “We chased around—chased a lot of balls down out of the strike zone. Disappointing with what we felt were some pretty nice days offensively coming into this, and today, we just didn’t. Weren’t able to string any at-bats, create much traffic and any scoring opportunities.”

In the top of the third inning, Marlins center fielder Derek Hill was removed after running down the first base line on a grounder and beating out a throw from shortstop CJ Abrams. Hill has already made three trips to the IL in 2025. He’s been limited to 53 games.

“We’ll just get that evaluated and have a better idea about it tomorrow,” McCullough said.

As announced on the FanDuel Sports Network game broadcast, Janson Junk, Ryan Weathers and Griffin Conine will all be rehabbing with Triple-A Jacksonville this upcoming week. Junk and Weathers are scheduled for rehab starts on Tuesday and Thursday, respectively. They should be rejoining the Marlins rotation next week if those starts go smoothly.

With the loss, the Marlins fall to 65-73 on the season. They will send out Adam Mazur on Tuesday night to make his third start of the season. Cade Cavalli will toe the rubber for Washington. First pitch from the nation’s capital is at 6:45 pm.