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Nolasco dominant, Marlins top Rockies

Against a hard hitting lineup, Ricky Nolasco shined on Saturday night at Dolphin Stadium, going 8 quality innings and striking out a career high 13 batters. John Baker backed him offensively, homering and knocking in three runs as the Marlins took the third game of this four game set, 5-3.

Nolasco had to throw 21 pitches to get through the 1st. After that, he only had to throw 71 pitches to get through his next 7 innings and strike out a career high thirteen batters. Since breaking out of a mini-slump two starts ago, he’s struck out 21 and hasn’t walked any. He’s striking out nearly a batter per inning. Right now, his K/BB ratio is mathematically impossible to calculate. The question of if the righty will be the one to end the Marlins’ major league record complete game drought is turning into a question of when he will do it. If Matt Holliday, who hits Nolasco at a .750 clip and had already homered twice on the night along with the rest of the heart of the Colorado lineup, which is hitting close to .300 in their last six games, weren’t due up in the 9th, he probably would have done it tonight.

In addition, Nolasco continued to get good run support. Tonight, most of it came from his battery mate John Baker, who smashed a two run homer and drove in another on a fielder’s choice. Baker has taken a liking to plating runs in bunches. Three of his last five games with RBIs have been multi-RBI efforts. Mike Jacobs and Josh Willingham accounted for the other two runs. Both Jacobs and Willingham have been rolling as of late. Since the break, Jacobs is OPSing .940 with 3 homers and 10 RBIs. Over the same stretch, Willingham is hitting .318 with a .942 OPS.

The Marlins will attempt to take three out of four from the Rockies tomorrow afternoon. Glendon Rusch vs Scott Olsen. After enjoying two straight wins, Olsen has since endured two straight losses, the last of which he didn’t deserve as he held the Mets to just two runs and struck out five over 5.2 innings. The Rockies will be a bit of a new look for him as he’s only faced them once in his career. The lefty has been pretty good in day games this year, though holding opposing batters to just a .222 average and collecting half of his six wins. Rusch had a good month of July, going 3-0 in four starts, all quality outings. He’s struggled in his career against the Marlins though, going 3-7 with a 5.33 ERA in twelve starts.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 3rd, 2008 at 4:07 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.