CLEVELAND — Devin Smeltzer’s job on Saturday afternoon was simple: Keep the Miami Marlins in the game.
He was given a spot start in the first game of Miami’s doubleheader against the Cleveland Guardians at Progressive Field after the team decided to skip Sandy Alcantara’s start with the ace dealing with mild right biceps tendinitis.
Smeltzer did his job and then some.
He gave the Marlins four innings on the mound and allowed just one run as Miami beat Cleveland, 6-1, to open the three-game road series. Miami improves to 11-9 on the season, while Cleveland falls to 10-10.
Smeltzer, who gave up a pair of two-run home runs in the 11th inning of Miami’s 5-2 loss on Wednesday, retired the first six batters he faced on Saturday — including striking out the side in the second — before getting help from his defense to minimize damage in his final two innings.
In the third, Smeltzer had runners on second and third with one out when Steven Kwan hit a fly ball to center field. Jazz Chisholm Jr. made the catch and fired a throw home. Catcher Mike Zunino stayed at third base, but Myles Straw took off for third. What followed was a relay from catcher Jacob Stallings to first baseman Yuli Gurriel covering second base back to Stallings at home to tag out Zunino to end the inning without a run scoring.
In the fourth, Smeltzer gave up his lone run on a Josh Bell one-out RBI double to right center to cut Miami’s lead to 2-1. Oscar Gonzalez followed Bell with a line drive to left-center that could have tied the game, but Chisholm caught the ball at the warning track before running into the wall.
Miami opened scoring with a two-run second inning. Bryan De La Cruz led off with a walk, advanced to third on a Jean Segura single up the middle and scored on a Yuli Gurriel single to left. Stallings then drove in Segura when he reached on an Amed Rosario fielding error.
De La Cruz added a solo home run — his second of the season — in the sixth inning and Miami added three more in the seventh on a Luis Arraez two-run single and Avisail Garcia RBI single.
The bullpen followed Smeltzer with five shutout innings, holding Cleveland to just one hit and one walk.
