MVN - Most Valuable Network

Marlins’ seven game win streak halted by Reds

During their seven game win streak, the Marlins used the long ball to their advantage but on Monday night in Cincinnati, it led to their demise. After Florida got out to an early 3-0 lead courtesy of Jeremy Hermida, Hanley Ramirez and Dan Uggla, the Reds rallied back late, hitting two 7th inning homers to defeat the Fish, 8-7 and give them their first loss since May 1.

Burke Badenhop pitched to the Great American Ballpark well, going 6 innings and only giving up 3 earned runs to notch his third straight quality start. Since getting shelled by Atlanta on April 24, Badenhop has only allowed 14 runs in his last 17.2 innings. With Corey Patterson and Ken Griffey Jr due up in the bottom of the 7th, Fredi Gonzalez went to lefty specialist, Taylor Tankersley. He got Patterson and walked Griffey, bringing Jeff Keppinger, who hits .360/.426/.549/.975 off of lefties, to the plate. Gonzalez remained in the dugout. Keppinger hit a two run homer and Brandon Phillips, who hits .304/.351/.508/.839 off of southpaws, strode to the plate. Once again, Gonzalez remained in the dugout, once again, a baseball was put into orbit and all of a sudden the Reds had a 4 run lead.

With an assist from Griffey Jr, Florida got back to within a run but Francisco Cordero slammed the door in the 9th, setting the Fish down 1-2-3 and stranding Uggla, who is hitting .500 with 4 homers and 8 RBIs in his last 5 games, on deck.

They say you can’t win ‘em all but even after taking seven straight, this was a frustrating loss.

Game two of this four game series tomorrow. Mark Hendrickson and the Fish will have their work cut out for them. They will face rookie phenom Edinson Volquez. Volquez, who the Reds acquired from the Rangers in return for top prospect Josh Hamilton this offseason, has been fabulous through his first six National League starts, going 5-1 and not giving up more than one earned run in any of them. Hendrickson is 5-1 as well but the Reds have been none too kind to him throughout his career. In 18.1 IP, he’s given up 19 runs (18 earned). He got mashed in both of his starts at the GABP, allowing a combined 10 earned runs in just 3.2 frames.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 13th, 2008 at 12:52 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.