It\u2019s the second half of the season, and for a team still fighting to reach the .500 mark, there\u2019s \u201ca lot of sense of urgency with every game,\u201d Miami Marlins manager Clayton McCullough said.<\/p>\n
So, dropping Monday\u2019s series opener 2-1 to the San Diego Padres at loanDepot park certainly stung.<\/p>\n
Advertisement<\/p>\n
But it was hard for the Marlins to find much fault in their performance.<\/p>\n
The result wasn\u2019t what they wanted \u2014 but the \u201cbrand of baseball,\u201d as McCullough likes to say, was the kind that\u2019s fueled their recent surge.<\/p>\n
Starter Eury P\u00e9rez allowed only two earned runs in five innings pitched \u2014 both in the second inning. Josh Simpson and Tyler Phillips each tossed two shutout innings in relief.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey threw great,\u201d McCullough said. \u201cBoth those guys had a couple of really efficient innings to keep us in a position where we had a chance to come back and potentially win.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kyle Stowers swatted his 22nd home run of the season \u2014 an MLB-best 12th since June 22. He now has eight homers in July, putting him four shy of Giancarlo Stanton\u2019s club record set in 2017.<\/p>\n
Advertisement<\/p>\n
And the Marlins\u2019 offense, which otherwise didn\u2019t score, banged out nine hits.<\/p>\n
\u201cI liked what we did offensively today,\u201d McCullough said. \u201cWe scattered some hits. \u2026 Offensively, our approach was very sound. Unfortunately, the [double-play] ball Gus hits to third [in the third inning] was right on the screws. That\u2019s how things go.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we continue to take at-bats of that quality and that nature, that puts you in a good position to be able to create innings and score runs.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the third inning, Jes\u00fas S\u00e1nchez was doubled off second after Agust\u00edn Ram\u00edrez lined a hard-hit ball to third baseman Manny Machado off starter Randy V\u00e1squez. Then in the eighth, S\u00e1nchez grounded into a double play after Xavier Edwards led off with an infield single.<\/p>\n
Advertisement<\/p>\n
The Padres grabbed the lead in the second inning when Jackson Merrill singled to right, scoring Xander Bogaerts, who had led off with a double to center. Martin Maldonado followed with an RBI double down the left-field line to make it 2-0.<\/p>\n
That was all P\u00e9rez gave up while striking out five and walking two. He threw 87 pitches, 52 for strikes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the first time I\u2019ve faced this lineup and this is an incredible lineup \u2014 they\u2019re very talented,\u201d P\u00e9rez said via team interpreter Luis Dorante Jr. \u201cSo you\u2019ve got to compete all the time and try your best, try to work around the zone and try to get as few pitches as you can to get the outs.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cJust another solid outing,\u201d McCullough said. \u201cI thought he really made some nice adjustments the last few innings. Had a good heater again, and I was really happy with the breaking ball and secondary stuff he threw tonight. His ability to utilize his entire repertoire tonight, especially as the outing wore on, is a great sign.\u201d<\/p>\n
Advertisement<\/p>\n
\u25aa During Sandy Alcantara\u2019s on-field bullpen session pregame in preparation for Wednesday\u2019s start, McCullough stood in the batter\u2019s box without taking a swing.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt looks a lot faster than it used to in my younger days,\u201d McCullough quipped. \u201cI did not want to take a hack and risk straining my oblique. And the embarrassment of swinging and missing.\u201d<\/p>\n
On a more serious note, McCullough explained his presence in the box.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do that sometimes,\u201d he said. \u201cYou get a bit of a visual, provide a different level of feedback, just see how it\u2019s coming in and also get in there and chat with [catcher] Nick [Fortes] as it\u2019s going on [about] what he\u2019s seeing. Instead of standing back behind there, get in and see what it looks like coming forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u25aa Outfielder Derek Hill, who injured his finger in the batting cage Saturday, was not in the lineup again, but came in to pinch-run for Liam Hicks in the ninth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s the second half of the season, and for a team still fighting to reach the .500 mark,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":194998,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2395],"tags":[456,5,6381,8220,1072,310,871,4942,25795,1388,7728,1527,1816,1525,778,58,4171,4,18,12436,1821,6878],"class_list":{"0":"post-194997","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-miami-marlins","8":"tag-agustin-ramirez","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-clayton-mccullough","11":"tag-derek-hill","12":"tag-eury-perez","13":"tag-giancarlo-stanton","14":"tag-jackson-merrill","15":"tag-jesus-sanchez","16":"tag-josh-simpson","17":"tag-kyle-stowers","18":"tag-liam-hicks","19":"tag-manny-machado","20":"tag-marlins","21":"tag-martin-maldonado","22":"tag-miami","23":"tag-miami-marlins","24":"tag-miamimarlins","25":"tag-mlb","26":"tag-san-diego-padres","27":"tag-tyler-phillips","28":"tag-xander-bogaerts","29":"tag-xavier-edwards"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114897703949787036","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194997\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}