MIAMI — Pablo Lopez, so often the model of consistency and somehow something of an elder statesman in this Miami Marlins rotation, was unusually off kilter throughout the first few weeks of June, until he took the mound again Wednesday and got to wash those frustrations away with a 7-4 win.
In three of his previous six outings, Lopez gave up at least four earned runs. In one of those starts, a line drive hit him on the wrist and knocked him out of the game before he could finish five innings. The response to his injury was a start delayed and then a shellacking at the hands of the rival New York Mets when he finally got back on the mound Friday.
It all meant he needed the sort of outing he delivered Wednesday and so did his Marlins, so he quietly pumped his fist when he walked back to the clubhouse for good at the end of the seventh inning. The crafty starting pitcher put together his best outing in more than a month to shut down the Colorado Rockies and clinch a series victory in Miami.
Lopez, 26, went seven innings for the first time since June 4 and held his opponent to one run or fewer for the first time since May. He hadn’t managed both of those feats in the same game in nearly six weeks, back when his ERA started with a one.
He added six strikeouts and allowed just four hits, although he did walk three. Most importantly, he danced out of trouble nearly every time he dug himself a hole and made it easy for the Marlins’ offense to put together a second straight come-from-behind win.
The only run Lopez surrendered came from the very first batter he faced. Yonathan Daza led off the game with a double and came around to score on a sacrifice fly by fellow Rockies outfielder Charlie Blackmon. The 1-0 deficit, however, only lasted until the third inning, when Miami (31-36) exploded for four runs to take a 4-1 lead with infielders Jazz Chisholm Jr., Jon Berti, Miguel Rojas and Garrett Cooper all scoring.
The Marlins later tacked on three more in the seventh with back-to-back home runs by Chisholm and outfielder Jorge Soler to go up 7-1, and pull away from Colorado (30-39) in front of 8,983 at loanDepot park.
Miami has now scored at least five runs in 12 of 21 games this month.
While he was in the game, Lopez pitched with a relatively tight margin for error, though, and ended his outing by getting out of two potentially dire situations. In the sixth, he gave up a lead-off trip to Rockies middle infielder Brendan Rodgers, only to respond with two straight strikeouts and a harmless flyout to get out of the jam. In the seventh, he coughed up a one-out single, prompting a mound visit from pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre Jr., and then breezed through the next two hitters on five pitches to end his day.
