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Ross backs Volstad, Marlins roll over Rockies

Fredi Gonzalez played it safe on Sunday afternoon, deciding not to send rookie Chris Volstad out for his first major league start on three day’s rest. Still, by pitching two strong innings in relief, the 21-year-old phenom picked up his first major league win and helped the Marlins avoid being swept by the Rockies. Cody Ross did his part as well. He drove in half of Florida’s 10 runs.

After what has become the obligatory scoreless 1st inning, Mark Hendrickson fell apart, having to throw 70 pitches to make it through his next 3. Brad Hawpe’s 2nd inning home run and Ryan Spilborgh’s two RBI single in the 4th marked the fourth time in his last six outings that the lefty has pitched a clean 1st, given up at least a run in the 2nd and gone on to give up a total of at least 4 without being able to get 16 outs. Opposing pitcher Aaron Cook, who is a career .161 hitter, also had an RBI double. After the game, it was announced that with Volstad entering the rotation, the lefty will be demoted to the bullpen for a second straight year due to ineffectiveness. However, with a lowly .172 BAA in his first inning of work, Hendrickson could thrive in a maximum effort role.

Volstad wasn’t perfect in his 2 innings of work. He even experience his first case of the jitters, loading the bases on two walks and a Yorvit Torrealba double in the 6th but he came back nicely, getting Clint Barmes to fly out to end the inning. He used his sinker almost exclusively but at times mixed in a low 90’s fastball and a developing breaking ball. The 21-year-old will get his first major league start on Friday at Dodger Stadium.

Who is this guy and what has he done with the Cody Ross that hit .239 in June? With 3 more hits and 5 more RBIs tonight, he’s now hitting .536 through his first 6 July games. In this series, the Marlins scored 38 runs. Ross knocked in 15 of them.

Ross would probably like to stay in Colorado but the rest of the Fish will be glad to get out of dodge and head to San Diego where they will begin a three game series with the Padres on Monday night. Riding a streak of four straight quality starts of at least 6 innings and looking for his tenth win of the season, Ricky Nolasco will get the start against a Friars team that is hitting just .247, third worst in the major leagues. Opposing him will be Greg Maddux, who struggled his last time out giving up 8 runs and failing to make it out of the 4th inning. Maddux hasn’t won since May 15. He has always caused the Marlins grief, though. In 41 career starts against them, the future Hall of Famer is 19-14 with a 2.95 ERA.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 7th, 2008 at 11:17 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.