WSH 7, MIA 4: Despite Garrett's strong start, Marlins fall

Coming off a rough road trip, the Miami Marlins offense was once again silenced by an opposing starting pitcher. Washington Nationals starter Joan Adon, who entered Friday's game with a 7.00 ERA, went six scoreless innings and held Miami without a hit for most of his outing on the way to a 7-4 Nats win.

Braxton Garrett quietly had another quality start despite giving up three runs. He struck out three, didn't walk anybody and allowed seven hits.

For the most part, Garrett's velocity was up just a tick and he leaned on his sinker/cutter combo, which we have seen at times this season. One thing that Garrett wasn't able to do was get enough whiffs on any of his pitches.

The first run that Garrett gave up came in the top of the first inning. CJ Abrams got a base hit and moved his way up thanks to a Lane Thomas groundout and then stealing third. That led to a Joey Meneses RBI groundout and a 1-0 Nats lead.

The last two runs Garrett gave up came thanks to a recently called up Carter Kieboom. He hit a two-run homer in the sixth to give the Nationals a 3-0 lead. That was Kieboom's second home run of the season and it left the bat at 104.9 mph and went 409 feet.

Visibly frustrated at the end of his outing, Garrett slammed his glove onto the Gatorade cooler in the Marlins dugout. This is the second game in a row that a Marlins pitcher has taken out their frustrations in that manner.

"It felt to me like I needed to have a shutdown ending there," said Garrett following the game. "I got two pretty quick outs and then the unfortunate dribbler down the line, and looking back on it, I feel like it was a ball that I could have possibly gotten, and then the home run. So yeah, just the results. That frustrated me, but I got to do better with that."

Like Sandy Alcantara in the Marlins' previous game, Garrett received no run support while he was on the mound. The Nationals later extended their lead by adding on three more runs to make it 6-0, but in the bottom of the seventh, the Marlins began their Miami Magic comeback attempt.

After back-to-back singles from Jake Burger and Bryan De La Cruz. Jesús Sánchez hit a two-RBI triple to drive them both in and give Miami their first runs of the game. Nick Fortes drove in Sánchez with an RBI double to make it 6-3 and a Jazz Chisholm Jr. RBI fielder's choice drove in Fortes to give the Marlins their fourth run.

Although Joan Adon wasn't very overpowering by any means, he was able to generate a lot of soft contact and quick outs. This was Adon's fourth game of the season in the majors and his ERA went down from 7.00 to 5.25.

The Miami offense combined for a total of eight hits and four runs. Manager Skip Schumaker acknowledged that the offense just cannot get to starting pitchers lately and also mentioned that a big reason for this loss was struggling against Adon.

"We got to figure out a way to attack that starting pitcher," said Schumaker following the game. "Kind of dug ourselves a little bit into a hole with not getting any hits. Honestly, that's exactly what happened until the sixth inning or so, but you know, we got to figure out how to attack that starter. We did a good job coming back fighting back against Mason Thompson, but we kind of dug ourselves into a hole."

Unfortunately, the Marlins were unable to get anything going after the four-run inning and the Nationals were able to add on one more run to make it 7-4. The Marlins dropped game one of the three-game set to the Nationals.

On Saturday, Eury Perez will take the mound against fellow rookie right-hander Jake Irvin.

Top photo by Megan Briggs/Getty Images