The San Francisco Giants beat the Miami Marlins 1-0 on Sunday, to prevent a series sweep in South Florida at loanDepot Park.
With 6,129 in attendance in a spread-out crowd with sporadic applause, the stadium sat at a cool 72 degrees, but the pitchers were bringing the heat with eight scoreless innings.
San Francisco’s Alex Wood started pitching for the first time since being reinstated from the 10-day Injury List after undergoing a back procedure. He pitched five scoreless innings, giving up three hits, and had four strikeouts.
Miami’s Jorge Lopez pitched nine strikeouts in six innings and gave up one unearned run.
The Giants run came after an error by Jesus Aguilar to allow for a base hit at the top of the third.
“You can’t win if you don’t score,” Manager Don Mattingly said. On top of scoreless innings, he says his team “threw a couple opportunities away.” Miami had no runs, three hits, and two errors on the night.
Miguel Rojas’ throwing of his bat after getting out on a pop fly showed the frustration the Marlins were met with.
The loss comes after a quick turnaround from Saturday night’s extra innings and 7-6 walk-off victory for the Marlins when Catcher Jorge Alfaro hit a double, defending home field and securing the second game of the series. On Friday, the Marlins won 4-1.
Alfaro sat out for the last game of the series, besides one opportunity at bat which resulted in the final out of the game when he came in as a pinch hitter for Starling Marte after Marte endured an arm injury pulling him from the plate.
Being an influential veteran on the team, the team said Marte’s potential absence from the team is concerning.
Mattingly said, Marte is a “big part of what we do with quality on offense, defense, and on the bases. We don’t have a replacement for that.”
Immediately after the game, Lopez was seen running on the elliptical flushing away his extra active adrenaline, and likely the loss as well.
Lopez says despite the loss in the last game of the series, the team should, “Go with our head high… and continue to focus on winning series.”
The Marlins look for redemption at home against Baltimore Tuesday at 6:40 p.m. while the Giants head to Philadelphia to play the Phillies at 7 p.m. The teams meet again to play this Thursday at 3 p.m. in San Francisco.
