82. Final. 0. 6. 7
The Miami Marlins (12-12) got their record back to the .500 mark by winning for the 9th time in 10 games, shutting out and shutting down the visiting Phillies (8-17) by a 7-0 score in south Florida.
The Phils offense produced just 6 hits, only 4 against Marlins starter Dan Haren (3-1) over his 6 innings. Meanwhile, Phillies starter Cole Hamels (1-3) had a poor outing, getting roped around for 10 hits and allowing 3 walks in 6 struggling innings.
The Fish started the scoring off Hamels in a way that has become alarmingly regular this season, via the long ball. With two outs and two on in the bottom of the 2nd inning, Martin Prado crushed a Hamels offering deep into the left field stands to put Miami up 3-0. In the bottom of the 4th, it was back to back one-out doubles by Jeff Baker and J.T. Realmuto that stretched the Fish lead out to 4-0.
In the bottom of the 5th, Miami got another solo run when Dee Gordon led off with a single, stole 2nd, went to 3rd on a wild pitch by Hamels, and then scored on a sac fly off the bat of Giancarlo Stanton.
Gordon and Prado then combined to get the Marlins final run off Hamels in the bottom of the 6th. The speedy Gordon led off with a single, and then came all the way around when Prado lined a double to center field. With the score 5-0 after 6 innings, that was it for both starting pitchers.
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The Marlins would put one more run on the board in the bottom of the 7th against Dustin McGowan. Marcel Ozuna led off with a single. Then Jeff Baker lined out to Phils’ 2nd baseman Chase Utley, who threw to 1st base to try to double off Ozuna. Instead, the offensively and defensively struggling Utley threw the ball away, allowing Ozuna to move all the way around to 3rd. He would score on a base hit by Realmuto to close out the scoring at 7-0.
The top of the 9th was a microcosm of the Phillies offensive misery over the first month of this 2015 season. Marlins reliever Sam Dyson came on and struck out Ryan Howard, Grady Sizemore, and Cody Asche all swinging to end the ball game.
The Phillies lost for the 5th straight game, falling to 8-16, last in the NL East by two games. Their record is 3rd worst in all of MLB, ahead of only the Texas Rangers and Milwaukee Brewers. They have either been shutout or scored just a single run in more than 1/3 of their games thus far.
Can it get any worse than this? Your ace on the mound getting roped around, your offense showing absolutely nothing. The Phillies simply were not competitive, and that has been the case in a number of games already in the early weeks of the season. We all believed it was going to be a bad year. To this point, it looks even worse than we imagined.