Solo shots by Hernández, Marsee power Marlins to 40th home win

[Kevin Barral]

MIAMI, FL — The Miami Marlins continued their dominance over the Washington Nationals on Saturday afternoon. A 4-2 victory was their seventh in eight head-to-head matchups this season between the division rivals.

The Marlins wasted no time getting to Nationals starter Jake Irvin. In the bottom of the first inning, following back-to-back hits from Griffin Conine and Owen Caissie, Otto Lopez knocked in a two-run single, giving the Fish an early 2-0 lead. López has slumped for the most part since the All-Star break, going into Saturday's game sporting a .530 OPS during that span. With hits in three straight games, he may finally be snapping out of it.

In the ensuing inning, Heriberto Hernández hit his 19th home run of the season, extending the Marlins' lead to 3-0. Since being recalled from Triple-A Jacksonville back on May 7, he has an .815 OPS.

Jakob Marsee plated Miami's final run with his eighth home run of the season in the bottom of the fourth inning. Marsee finished the afternoon with his fourth multi-hit game in the month of August. He is slashing .286/.385/.482/.867 with two home runs since the month began.

"I feel like this past month and a half, I haven't really been stressed at all," Marsee said. "I've been really confident, having good at-bats and the results are starting to come, which is great. It sucks when you're not performing, and especially when I feel like I was having good at-bats or hitting the ball hard at times, and just things not going away, but that's baseball and I know I can make an impact in a lot of ways."

For a second straight start, Eury Pérez struggled with his command. Against the Reds in his last start, he walked five, and on Saturday, he walked three in five innings of work. He also allowed two runs (one earned) on three hits and struck out four. The bottomline results have been great anyway as he owns a 1.99 ERA in the month of August.

"There were a lot of armside misses today with Eury more consistently than we've seen and didn't really have a terrific rhythm," said Marlins manager Clayton McCullough. "Lots of deep counts, but we're talking about it differently now on those kind of days where it's a little bit more scattered. He's tough to hit and keeping the ball in the ballpark now at a much different rate than he ever has in his career."

Pérez has now gone 60 straight innings, spanning nearly 10 full starts without allowing a home run. He also has a 1.67 ERA over his last 13 starts. José Fernández and Dontrelle Willis are the only Marlins pitchers ages 23 and younger to post a lower ERA in any 13-start span.

 

In 23 starts for Pérez, he has a 3.17 ERA, 3.67 FIP, 9.66 K/9 and 3.67 BB/9. Now in uncharted territory when it comes to workload (127.2 IP), McCullough told Craig Mish on Marlins.TV that Pérez will not have any specific innings limit. McCullough said they will be mindful of his workload, but there are no plans to stop him from pitching.

The Marlins bullpen was perfect. The combination of Michael Petersen, Josh Ekness, Tyler Zuber and Calvin Faucher combined to retire every batter they faced in four total innings of work.

Ekness specifically hasn't allowed a run in his last five appearances. He has a 0.93 ERA in the month of August. Overall on the season, the rookie right-hander has a 1.20 ERA, 4.02 FIP, 6.00 K/9 and 4.20 BB/9 in 14 appearances.

"We knew coming in that Josh would play a factor in this season at some point," McCullough said. "I think it's probably as good a fastball as there is in the bullpen in the big leagues. When you take into account the low release, velocity and vert on his heater, it's a real pitch. Right now, it's a really tough at-bat versus right, and I think we'll start to see as Josh continues to pitch here that the walks go down and the strikeouts go up."

With the win, the Marlins improve to 66-64 on the season. That includes a 40-25 record at home, which is fourth-best in MLB—only the division-leading Milwaukee Brewers (45-23), Tampa Bay Rays (43-23) and Atlanta Braves (42-23) have been better.

The Marlins go for the sweep on Sunday at 1:40 pm with Janson Junk starting. It will also be "Thank you Tommy Day," with a special pregame ceremony honoring longtime color analyst Tommy Hutton, who'll be retiring after this season.

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