The Miami Marlins clinched the NLDS ticket with a 2-0 win over the Chicago Cubs in Game 2 of the best-of-three wild card series at Wrigley Field on Friday. The hard-hitting colored Wright Sixto Sanchez threw five scoreless innings with six strikeouts in the Underdog Marlins win. Garrett Cooper ran the lone run for Miami and Magnus Sierra added an RBI single for the lone scoring of the game.
With their cleanup, the Merlins extended their unbeaten postseason series. The club is now 7-0 in the playoff series, having won the 1997 and 2003 World Series. Seed Marlins, ranked 6th, will face No. 2 seed Atlanta Braves in the best-of-five NLDS. Game 1 is scheduled for Tuesday.
Here are four gifts from the series:
Pitchers duel with Darvish-Sanchez
In Friday’s game, Cubs veteran right-hander and NL Sai Young candidate Yu Darwish faced Sanchez. Here’s a look at both starting lines for the night:
Sachez, just 22 years old, came out on top in the duel. Entering MLB only in August Gust, the youngster looked proud for the big stage at the start of the season following his first career. Sanchez had a bit of trouble in the fifth inning when he found himself facing Cubs right fielder Kyle Schwaber when the base was loaded and two were out. He pulled himself out of the jam and got Schwarber up to 88 mpf changeup in the final match.
We know Sanchez has power on the mound, but now it has been proven that he too has found peace.
Sanchez definitely echoes the Hall of Famer Pedro Martinez. In fact, Sanchez cites him as his baseball idol and also Pedro’s number 45 as a tattoo.
According to Sarah Langs of MLB, Sanchez is the seventh youngest pitcher in his postseason debut with five or more scoreless innings starting. Other small pots to do this include Jim Palmer, Chief Bender, Steve Avery, Valley Bunker, Storm Davis and Weight Howet. In addition, Sanchez threw four of his 89 pitches as a fastball on Friday, with a vague average of 98.3 mph. In his debut, Ruchi hit 100-mile or more on seven pitches, tying him to Nathan Avaldi for fourth place at the start of the postseason since pitch trekking began in 2008.
Darvish also definitely made a solid start, and was a constant presence for the Cubs in the regular season. The Cooper home run did not come until the 90th pitch of his game. But Darwish began with the offense of Chicago’s Game 2 or lack thereof.
Cubs offend the pain quietly
Cubs scored just one run in a two-game series. At the loss of Game 1, Cubs scored the lone run in the fifth inning on Ian Hep’s two-out homer. In Game 1, Hep got two of the four Cubs hits. His 2-2-2 hitters (Anthony Rizzo, Kyle Schwaber and Chris Bryant) in Game 2 did not improve the lineup beyond 0-for-11. Oops. He has been a key part of the club’s championship since the 2016 World Series run. Jason Hayward was the only one from the 2016 squad to get a hit in Friday’s loss; He went 2-for-3 while Javier Base was 0-for-4 with 2 strikeouts.
After winning in 201, the chicks have not really had a postseason success. With the Marlins losing their Game 2, the Cubs have now lost nine of their last 13 postseason games. With so many of the team’s key players approaching free agency, could that signal the end of the road for the group that helped Chicago win its first World Series in 108 years?
The Marlins playoff magic continues
The Marlins have continued to resume their magical postseason. The franchise now has a 7-0 playoff series record. The 2020 post is not the club’s third playoff appearance and the first since winning the 2003 World Series. Yes, the unbeaten record is impressive. But, right now at the moment, what makes it even more impressive is the fact that they’ve added the main underdogs to the win column. His N.L. This is even more significant just months after the team spread the heavy coronavirus at the start of the regular season of 2020, considering the victory of the wild card series.
In just a few days of the delayed and brief 2020 season, Marlins had at least 20 positive cases of coronavirus, with 18 total players testing positive. The club was forced to seek clearance to re-season approval at a hotel in Philadelphia. And once they did this, they played many doubleheaders for postponed games.
The resilience of this group of Marlins players is really something special.
The status of the obscure Martini NLDS
So far, it is not clear if outfielder Starling Mart will be cleared to play during the division series. The Marlins trade deadline pickup suffered a broken arm after being hit by a pitch in Gameless 1. The 31-year-old is arguably Miami’s best all-rounder. He did not play on Friday.
Mart has been listed as a day-to-day at the club for now, and the Marlins hope he can play with a post-injury injury. Mart suffered a fractured bone fracture while walking on the fastbone between the left pink and the wrist.