MIAMI — Four days later, Pablo Lopez still wasn’t happy about what happened Friday in Atlanta. The first pitch of the game, he said Friday, got away from him and he plunked Ronald Acuna Jr. The Atlanta Braves complained and argued the hit by pitch was intentional, and the umpires eventually relented to their gripes and ejected the starting pitcher.
Acuna scored for the only run in the Miami Marlins’ loss at Truist Park, as five relief pitchers combined to throw eight full innings without an earned run. It was perhaps the best pitching performance of the Marlins’ season and its effects were still being felt all the way through Wednesday, when Miami beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 9-6, for a fourth win in five games.
“What’s been going on with the bullpen is really what hurts me the most,” Lopez said Tuesday after helping the Marlins beat the Dodgers in 10 innings. “You can see that lingering effect.”
Those eight innings of relief were just the start for Miami. The Marlins needed three innings in a win Saturday, 3 2/3 in a loss Sunday, three in another win Monday and six in their 10-inning win Sunday, and then they went with a bullpen game Wednesday in Miami.
Pitcher Ross Detwiler, who has appeared 28 times as a relief pitcher in the 2021 MLB season and now just thrice as a starting pitcher, got the starting nod and lasted just 2 2/3 innings. He left with the Marlins (38-47) trailing 5-2 and they needed to hold Los Angeles (53-34) at bay for 6 1/3 innings to stage a comeback. Once again, the bullpen delivered.
Pitcher Jordan Holloway entered first and tossed 4 1/3 scoreless innings while Miami chipped away at the Dodgers’ lead. First baseman Jesus Aguilar doubled in a run in the third, middle infielder Jazz Chisholm Jr. had an RBI groundout in the fifth and slugger Garrett Cooper tied the game 5-5 with his second solo home run of the game in the sixth.
The Marlins turned to Anthony Bass for an inning and the relief pitcher got through the eighth cleanly, then rookie outfielder Jesus Sanchez drove in a go-ahead run with an opposite field single in the bottom of the frame. The bullpen finally broke when rookie Anthony Bender gave up a game-tying home run to Dodgers outfielder Zach McKinstry, but Aguilar hit his first home run at loanDepot park this season in the bottom of the ninth off Los Angeles pitcher Edwin Uceta, sending the crowd of 9,523 into a second straight walk-off celebration.
Los Angeles’ late run was only the eighth earned run allowed by Miami’s bullpen in 31 innings since Lopez’s first-pitch ejection Friday. Ten different relievers have contributed in the six games, four have thrown at least 3 2/3 innings and seven have pitched on back-to-back days. Bender (1-0) has thrown five innings, fellow relief pitcher Richard Bleier has thrown four, and Detwiler has appeared as both a starter and a reliever. The bullpen’s collective ERA in the last six games now sits at 2.32.
Instead of letting on frustrating loss Friday spiral into a season-killing skid, Miami has thrived.
Friday was the sort of loss capable of derailing an entire week and potentially an entire season, considering the Marlins’ place in the bottom of the National League East standings. Miami has been without multiple relievers in every game since and, still trailing the first-place New York Mets by eight games, can hardly afford another substantial losing skid. Instead, the Marlins have turned an expected weakness into a strength, won four one-run games and made up ground in the standings — and they still do have the best run differential in the division.
“Obviously, they’re a competitive group and I think that’s what you get with your teams that if you get it going right is they do feel that group, like they’re all kind of intertwined,” manager Don Mattingly said. “They want to be able to pick each other up and be the group that is that bullpen unit that’s strong, it’s versatile and they take pride in what they do, so I feel like we have that.
“I think they probably like the challenge of it.”
Two of the relievers to pitch back-to-back games in this stretch were added within the last week, including pitcher David Hess, who got wins Monday and Tuesday. Bender, who was pitching in independent leagues the last two years and is now a surprise contender for an MLB Rookie of the Year Award, picked up his first save Monday, then his first win Wednesday. No matter who Miami has trotted out to the mound, there has seldom been a weak link.
Monday was the perfect encapsulation: Garcia, Detwiler, Bleier, Bass and fellow relief pitcher Dylan Floro were all unavailable, so Mattingly turned to Bender, Hess, and lesser-utilized relief pitchers Steven Okert and Zach Pop to finish off a one-run win. All four of Miami’s wins since Friday have come by one run and the Marlins had only six all year before the weekend.
On Wednesday, Holloway was the hero out of the bullpen. The rookie gave up five runs in three innings in his last appearance last Wednesday, but Miami called upon him for length after Detwiler unraveled in the top of the third. Detwiler cruised through two scoreless frames, then gave up a leadoff homer in the third before he got two outs.
He never could get the third, though. Six straight batters reached base safely and the Dodgers scored four two-out runs to take a 5-2 lead. Mattingly desperately wanted Detwiler to get through three, but he couldn’t wait any longer. Holloway came in to get the third out, then fired four more innings while giving up just two hits and striking out six. By the time he left, Miami had tied the game 5-5.
With the season on the brink, the Marlins are winning games in a way they haven’t all year. There might be too much ground to make up, but Miami keeps preaching an optimistic tone because of the run differential and the lack of a dominant team in the division. The Marlins have played with a thin margin for error all year because of its lackluster offense and a potentially season-saving run from their bullpen is keeping them afloat while tries to figure out its best course of action for the July 31 trade deadline.
“We believe that we can get back in this thing,” Mattingly said. “When you’ve got horses like we have on the mound and guys are throwing the ball good, you can get on a roll. We just haven’t been able to do it yet, so I’m still not backing away from what we can accomplish this year.”
