MVN - Most Valuable Network

Gregg can’t hold late lead, Rockies walk off in 11th

For the first time in two weeks, the Marlins’ defense didn’t collapse around Andrew Miller. Instead, it collapsed around the bullpen. Still, Florida somehow got the ball to Kevin Gregg, who has pitched well as of late, converting his last two save opportunities without much trouble, clinging to a one run lead in the bottom of the 11th. Gregg walked two, committed an error and gave up a two run walk-off single to Ryan Spilborghs. The Rockies won 6-5.

The Marlins struggled early against another soft tossing lefty Mark Redman, only managing to scatter six hits against the journeyman. All of them were singles. Two of them were infield singles. Even the two runs they plated in the 2nd came on softly hit balls, a Miller sacrifice bunt and a Paul Hoover base knock. Redman got through 6 innings on just 88 pitches, inducing 11 ground balls and 3 double plays. He struck out 2 and walked 1. While the Marlins couldn’t solve Redman, who came into this game with an ERA near 8, they took the lead back in the 8th off of Taylor Buchholz, who has been lights out this year. Coming into tonight, Buccholz hadn’t given up a home run in his last 51.2 innings dating bating to last season. After Jeremy Hermida reached on a base hit, he served up Jorge Cantu’s 15th of the year. Cantu’s blast marked a second consecutive night that the Marlins took the lead via a two run bomb while trailing in the late going.

Logan Kensing preserved the lead in the bottom of the 8th… but the Marlins’ defense didn’t. Kensing induced two pop ups to begin the inning but they both dropped in front of outfielders. A strikeout later, Jeff Baker sac flied in the tying run for his fourth RBI of the night. Instead of ending the night as the league leader in come-from-behind wins, Florida padded the National League lead in errors (71) and in worst team fielding percentage (.977).

Cody Ross capped off another good night at the plate, doubling in the go ahead run that set the stage for the Gregg debacle in the top of the 10th. With the 3-5 night, Ross extended his hit streak to a modest six games. Over that span, he has homered once and driven in 4 runs. Even more surprising is the fact that he’s done most of that damage against righties, who he only hit sub .220 against coming into this season. Meanwhile, his backup, Alfredo Amezaga has been hot as of late too, hitting safely in four of his last five starts. Nice to see after the position was a revolving door last season.

The new trouble spot is quickly becoming the closer’s role. On the year, Gregg is 6-3 with a 2.47 ERA and 15 saves. Not to shabby. But in this case, the stats lie. Including tonight’s meltdown, Gregg has blown his last four one run saves. In 12 innings with RISP, he owns a 6.00 ERA and a 1.42 WHIP. Meanwhile, Joe Nelson, who has some experience closing games, has only given up one earned run in his last 15 innings pitched, dating all the way back to May. Gregg has been good in situations where he has at least one insurance run, though so I wouldn’t want to see him completely removed from the role. Some type of strange closer by committee situation could work. Nelson in one run games and Gregg for everything else.

The Marlins will try to even the series tomorrow. Scott Olsen vs rookie Greg Reynolds. Olsen was solid his last time out, tossing his fifth quality start in his last six outings but against Dan Haren, run support was a bit hard to come by. The Marlins wound up winning the game but Olsen wound up taking a no decision. It wasn’t the first time he had some hard luck in the month of June. Despite collecting a 3.13 ERA in the month, he went 0-2. The 24-year-old will look to rebound against the Rockies, a team he has been so-so against in his career. In 6 starts against the 2007 National League champs, Olsen is 1-1 with a 4.46 ERA. Reynolds’ major league career has gotten off to an up and down start. While he has enjoyed some quality outings like his 6 inning, 1 earned run win on June 7, he has hit some bumps in the road like his 3.1 inning, 8 earned run outing against the Tigers. Reynolds has been good of late. Even though he took a loss in each one, he made it to at least the 6th inning in each of his last two starts.

Marlins, Amezaga rain on Nats’, Perez’s parade

Ricky Nolasco got the start on Wednesday afternoon at Dolphin Stadium and pitched pretty well. Washington starter Odalis Perez did as well but fortunately middle reliever Charlie Manning did not. In fact, Manning was bad. Real bad. Egregiously bad. Giving up a home run to a seasonal .160 hitter vs LHP after an hour and forty-five minute rain delay bad. Alfredo Amezaga’s 7th inning shot, just his second of the year and first off a lefty since 2006 gave the Marlins their first lead of the day and eventually propelled them to a 4-2 win and a series victory over the Nationals.

Nolasco was solid once again, going at least 7 innings for a fourth straight start, recording his ninth quality start in his last 11 outings and lowering his ERA to underneath 4 for the first time this season. After racking up one of the National League’s best K:BB ratios amongst starters up in June, he got his July off to an 8:0 start. He’s walked one or less in his last 29.2 innings pitched. However, Nolasco won’t get a chance to show Clint Hurdle, who has the honor of coaching the NL All-Star team this year and hand picking his pitching staff, what he can do first hand. He will be the only member of the Marlins’ rotation that does not start in the upcoming four game series at Coors.

Perez got the most out of the two Nolasco runs though, limiting the Marlins to just 5 hits over 6 innings which was definitely a good sign for a starting staff that has been riddled by injuries this season. With his pitch count at just 77, Perez was still rolling in the 7th. For the Marlins, the rain couldn’t have come at a better time. A 105 minute delay forced Manny Acta to reluctantly go to his bullpen which had been downright dreadful in the first two games of this series, giving up 7 of Florida’s 11 runs. They were no better today. It took Manning just 3 pitches to ruin the shutout, put the Marlins in the lead and waste Perez’s outing. Wes Helms gave the Marlins a little extra cushion in the 8th, knocking in a run (it would have been two if not for a spectacular play by Roger Bernadina) off of Saul Rivera. Helms has hit safely in six of his last eight starts. Kevin Gregg showed some signs of consistency as he tossed his second straight uneventful 9th inning to seal it.

The aforementioned four game series with Colorado starts tomorrow. Andrew Miller vs former Marlin Mark Redman. Right about now, Miller would make a great spokesman for Kit-Kat. He needs to be given a break. The Marlins have played terrible defense behind Miller as of late which has translated into some not-so-hot looking lines. The 24-year-old has only lasted a combined 9.2 innings in his last two starts, both losses. Redman will be filling in for an injured Jeff Francis. In four career starts against Florida, he’s 0-1 with a 7.71 ERA.

Not so much fun with Mike Jacobs

I actually wanted to get into a little something about how horrific our catching situation is right now, but instead I’m going to go with another hot topic right now. That being (in my best Jerry Seinfeld impression) “What’s the deal with Mike Jacobs?”. You know that was a pretty good impression.

Let me start off by saying his 18 homeruns are awesome. If he was in the American League, he would be one off the lead. Then again, if he was in the American League, he could be a designated hitter, but we’ll get into that later. Compared with those first baseman that have enough at bats to qualify, Jacobs ranks in the bottom of nearly every major category. He’s 13 out of 14 in batting average at .233. Only Ryan Howard’s .218 is worse. Mike’s on base percentage is dead last at .262. Next closest is Ryan Howard at .311. That’s embarrassing. One thing Jacobs does exceptionally well is hit the ball for extra bases. His .506 slugging percentage has him tied for 4th with Derrek Lee. So we have a slugger that can barely hit his weight, and will not take a walk for his life. His 11 walks have him at 36th in the entire major leagues for first basemen. Daryle Ward (42 at bats), Wes Helms (144 at bats), and John Bowker (201 at bats) are the only ones to be worse. His .768 OPS (on base + slugging) ranks him 12th out of 14th with only Carlos Delgado and Adam LaRoche being worse. So even with his tremendous slugging, he’s still one of the worst first basemen in the National League.

Then we look at his defense. Now I don’t really like many of the defensive fielding formulas but even range factor ((PO + A) divided by innings) and zone rating (The percentage of balls fielded by a player in his typical defensive “zone,” as measured by STATS, Inc.) would back me up in how bad he really is defensively. You can watch with your eyes all you want and you may not see a worse fielder. Looking at first basemen in both league, Jacobs’ 8.38 range factor has only Rich Aurilia keeping him from being the worst. His zone rating of .744 his dead last and well of Prince Fielder’s .804 for 25th place. Jacobs is that bad over at first base.

So what’s a team to do. Well they could move Josh Willingham from left to first base and put Luis Gonzalez out in left. Now we have no clue how Hammer’s back is and if being at first would do more damage to it, so for now, let’s leave him in left field. So Jacobs escapes the bench that way. Unfortunately for Mike, there’s a guy in Albuquerque leading the entire world in homeruns. That guy is Dallas McPherson. The 27 year old former uber prospect is hitting .310/.424/.705 with 29 homeruns, 55 walks and 99 strikeouts. He can play both corner infield spots (think Jorge Cantu-like D at 3rd or better, and Cantu-like D at 1st or better). His OPS vs lefties is 1.040 and vs righties is 1.154. Now many players in Albuquerque have ridiculous home/road splits (John Gall for instance), but McPherson’s don’t change that much wherever he plays. In the friendly confines of Isotopes Park, he is hitting .324/.422/.791 and away he is hitting .294/.426/.605. A big drop off in slugging, but his OBP being virtually identical are definitely encouraging.

I can already hear you yelling, “but Mike Jacobs has 18 homeruns!!!!!!!!!”. There really isn’t much the guy can do besides hit random homeruns right now. Since May 1, he is hitting .220/.249/.470. With runners in scoring position he is hitting .208/.268/.542. Close and late he is hitting .156/.206/.313. You can tell me “he’s going to carry the team at one point” and “he’s a gamer” and “my god, he has 18 homeruns man!” but the fact of the matter is that he is one of the worst first basemen in baseball. If the Marlins brought up Dallas McPherson, they could improve both offensively and defensively. Imagine that. Killing two birds with one stone. If the Fish did call up McDallas (his nickname with the Angels), Jake would either be relegated to the bench or more likely he would be traded. Perhaps there’s an AL team that wants someone who can play first base a little bit and slam a few homeruns for them. It’s definitely worth making the call for.

Hanley can’t do it all himself, Marlins bit by Nats

Hanley Ramirez went 2-4 with a homer and 5 RBIs on Tuesday night at Dolphin Stadium. On a normal night, that would have been enough. Unfortunately, normal nights have become a rarity for Mark Hendrickson. After a winless June, the lefty got his July kick started by giving up 6 runs including a grand slam to the lowly Nationals and collecting his fifth straight loss.

At first, it looked as though Hendrickson was going to make a case for his job, getting through his first 3 innings on just 45 pitches. 43 pitches later, the Nationals had a 6-1 lead. Elijah Dukes got the Washington party started with a solo shot in the 4th, Jose Lopez knocked one in with an RBI single in the 5th and Ronnie Belliard hit his second career granny with no outs in the 6th. It was only the Nationals’ thirteenth multi-home run game of the year (14th in the NL). Hendrickson was responsible for both of them. They beat out 15 hits, coming within one hit of tying their seasonal high. Hendrickson was responsible for 10 of them. One more week. Just one more week.

Ramirez didn’t get much help from the rest of the teammates either. Cody Ross‘ 5th inning single was the only hit they registered off of Nationals’ starter Collin Balester, who collected his first major league win in his first major league start. Alfredo Amezaga was the only only Marlin that collected an RBI. Mike Jacobs entered this game looking to improve upon a miserable June in which he hit just .208/.219/.446/.665, made two errors and ran his fielding percentage to a career worst .988. So far, so not good. Jake went 1-5 with a strikeout and committed an error that led to 2 unearned runs.

The good news for the slumping slugger is that unlike the majority of his teammates, he won’t have to brave the afternoon South Florida sun tomorrow but that’s because with a lefty on the hill, he’ll most likely be riding the pine. That lefty is Odalis Perez, who performed well in his first start back from the disabled list. Limited to 80 pitches, Perez shut out the Orioles over 4 innings and struck out 3. He dominated the Marlins the last time he faced them on April 20, going 6 innings and only giving up 5 hits while striking out 7. Ricky Nolasco gets the nod for Florida. If Nolasco doesn’t make the All-Star roster, it won’t be because he’s not deserving. The righty pitched his heart out in the month of June, going 3-1 with a 3.31 ERA and a 29:7 K:BB in five starts. He’s lasted at least 7 innings in three straight starts. On May 9, his ERA was at 5.35. Tomorrow, he can lower it to under 4. In five career starts against Washington, Nolasco is 4-1 with a 3.77 ERA.