This was a series the Marlins had no business losing, and they went ahead and lost it anyway, 3 games to 1, to a Nationals team that’s been one of the worst pitching staffs in baseball all year. That’s just unacceptable.

Game 1: Eury has a stinker

Not the start to the series anyone wanted. Eury, who has been so good for months now, just didn’t have it, allowing 5 earned runs in only 3 innings as the Nationals blew it open with a big third inning. Miami’s offense didn’t give him any margin for error either, and the Marlins fell 9-2. Bad pitching and no offense is about as bad a combination as you can have, and that’s exactly what game 1 was.

Game 2: Sandy stumbles, offense wakes up too late

Sandy was next up and had one of his worst innings of the year, allowing 4 runs in the third as Washington strung together hit after hit against him. For a lot of this game the offense was quiet again, but they did finally show some life late, tying it up at 4-4 in the seventh. Frustratingly, that comeback went to waste when the bullpen let Washington walk it off in extras, 5-4. So credit where it’s due for finally fighting back, but this is still a game the Marlins should have controlled from the start if Sandy pitches like he normally does.

Game 3: Pitching finally shows up, offense needs a lot of help

This was easily the best pitched game of the series for Miami. Junk went 4.2 innings allowing just 1 run, and the bullpen kept it right there the rest of the way, holding Washington to only 2 runs total. Great starting pitching finally, exactly what this staff has been doing for weeks before this series.

The problem is the offense still couldn’t do much of anything against a bad Nationals staff until the ninth inning, when they scored 6 runs on basically nothing, a couple of walks, a hit-by-pitch, a wild throw into the dugout, and an Otto Lopez homer, with a ton of help from Washington completely falling apart. I’m glad they got the win and avoided the sweep, 6-2, but let’s be honest, that’s on the Nationals blowing the game more than it is the Marlins actually hitting. Also not great news, Xavier Edwards left this game with a left thumb sprain after a collision at second, and the Marlins ended up placing him on the 10-day IL. Losing him for any length of time would be brutal for this lineup.

Game 4: Gusto pulled too early, bullpen blows it open, offense no-shows again

Today’s game had a similar feel. The Marlins actually led 3-0, and Gusto had been really good in this one too, but he was pulled after only 4.1 innings, which I thought was way too quick given how he was throwing. The reliever who came in gave up a home run practically right away, and just like that the lead started slipping. It was 3-2 after five, and then the Nationals blew the game open in the seventh to make it 6-3, with one of those runs coming on an absolutely brutal throw from Esteury Ruiz in the outfield that sailed nowhere near third base, maybe the worst throw I’ve seen from this team all year.

And it wasn’t just that one play either. The base running mistakes were out in full force again today, which has been a season-long problem for this team at this point. Miami had a runner picked off in the first inning, Jakob Marsee got thrown out trying to stretch a double into a triple, and Ruiz was caught stealing on top of all that. Three separate outs on the bases in one game, plus the throwing error in the field. This team just cannot stop beating itself with mental mistakes, and today was one of the worst examples of it all season.

And then, of course, the offense found a way to make it even more painful. Miami actually got the bases loaded with nobody out and a real chance to get right back in this thing, and somehow scored zero runs on the whole sequence. Kyle Stowers struck out to start it off, and then Leo Jimenez grounded into a double play to basically end the threat right there. All Washington had to do to shut that down was bring in a lefty, because lefty pitching continues to be Miami’s kryptonite all season long. Bases loaded, nobody out, and nothing to show for it, that about sums up this whole series.

Miami didn’t have anything left after that, and the Nationals closed it out, 6-3, final.

The real problem, again

Look, the pitching wasn’t good in games 1 and 2, I’m not going to pretend otherwise. But even with that, this offense has been unacceptable against a Nationals pitching staff that is genuinely one of the worst in the league. You cannot go through a whole series against a team like that and only really show up for one inning the entire time, and even that inning needed the other team to completely implode to make it happen. Add in the base running mistakes and the errors, which have been a recurring issue for this team all season and not just today, and it’s just a formula for losing games you should be winning. On top of that, Leo Jimenez continues to be a black hole in this lineup, he’s been bad offensively all year and hasn’t been any better defensively either, and it’s baffling that he keeps getting run out there over better options.

That’s a series loss, 3 games to 1, to a team they should be beating comfortably, and every one of these losses makes the playoff math that much harder. Just an unacceptable series overall, outside of that one gift of an inning in game 3.

#FightinFish

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