MVN - Most Valuable Network

Marlins use long ball to sweep Nats

Scott Olsen’s early inning struggles put the Marlins in a 2 run hole but the bullpen tossed three scoreless frames and Dan Uggla homered twice as Florida rallied back to beat Washington, 5-4. At 23-14, the Fish are the best team in the National League.

Five days after coming within one pitch of a complete game shutout in his last start, Olsen allowed 4 runs and didn’t strike out any in 6 innings. It was the second time in his last three outings that he’s allowed more than three runs and the second time in his last four that he hasn’t recorded a strikeout. But, in hindsight, it was good to see him have a short, 59 pitch outing. Even though Olsen has performed much better than expected following shoulder problems this spring, he was being overworked. Before Sunday, he had thrown 324 pitches in his last three starts. With the way the bullpen has been pitching, there’s no reason for that.

For the first time in this series, Washington’s starter had a decent outing. Shawn Hill went 7 innings and gave up just two runs but reliever Luis Ayala faltered in the 8th, giving up 3 runs on homers by Jeremy Hermida and Uggla, his second of the day. Since the May 2 lineup change, Hermida is hitting .333 and Uggla is hitting .400.

Next up: Four games in Cincinnati. Burke Badenhop, fresh off his first major league win, will match up against Aaron Harang in game one on Monday.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 12th, 2008 at 2:40 am and is filed under Game Recaps. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.