ATLANTA — It was a small sample size, just three games and 13 innings of work, but the Miami Marlins entered their series opener against the Atlanta Braves with a strong track record of success against opposing starting pitcher Kyle Wright.
But past success meant nothing on Friday night.
Wright was dominant against Miami, throwing six shutout innings as the Marlins lost, 3-0, at Truist Park — the team’s second shutout loss in the past three games.
Heading into the game, Wright had a career 6.92 ERA against the Marlins, allowing 10 earned runs in 13 innings and averaging 1.77 walks and hits per inning pitched. Five of the Marlins’ 14 hits against him in those three starts were home runs.
Just how good was Wright on Friday? He struck out 11 of the 24 batters he faced and allowed just six baserunners via four singles, a walk and a hit by pitch. He recorded multiple strikeouts in three of his six innings, including striking out the side in the first and fourth innings.
Miami (5-8) had two scoring chances against Wright that came up empty.
In the second, the Marlins had runners on first and third after consecutive two-out singles by Brian Anderson and Miguel Rojas only for Jacob Stallings to strand them with an inning-ending groundout.
And in the sixth, they had the bases loaded with two outs after Garrett Cooper was hit by a pitch, Jorge Soler hit a single (his second of the game) and Jesus Aguilar walked. The inning, and Wright’s time on the mound, ended with Avisail Garcia hitting a comebacker to the pitcher’s mound that Wright fielded and flicked to Matt Olson at first base to the final out of the inning.
The Braves (7-8) scored their lone run in the first inning against Trevor Rogers. Olson reached first on a fielder’s choice, moved to second when Austin Riley drew a walk, got to third on a failed pickoff attempt and scored on a Marcell Ozuna RBI fielder’s choice in which Ozuna barely beat out the throw to first for what could have been an inning-ending double play.
Rogers needed 33 pitches to get out of the first inning but settled in after that. Rogers held the Braves to just four hits and two walks over his five-inning start while striking out four.
Olson gave the Braves a pair of insurance runs with a two-out, two-run double in the seventh against Richard Bleier.
A seventh-inning decision
When Stallings recorded a two-out single in the top of the seventh inning and Miami down one run, manager Don Mattingly went to his bench and made a pair of switches.
The first: Jon Berti pinch-ran for Stallings, giving the Marlins speed on the basepaths.
The second: Bryan De La Cruz pinch-hitting for Jazz Chisholm Jr.
Mattingly was playing matchups by putting De La Cruz into the game after Braves manager Brian Snitker brought left-handed pitcher Tyler Matzek into the game.
The decision backfired, with De La Cruz striking out, but the numbers behind the decision:
— Matzek has limited left-handed hitters to a .187 batting average and .535 on-base-plus-slugging mark in his career.
— The left-handed-hitting Chisholm has a career .685 OPS against left-handed pitchers over a small sample size of 171 plate appearances, while righty De La Cruz entered the game with a .333 average and .929 OPS in an even smaller sample size of 63 career MLB plate appearances.
Chisholm has had just seven plate appearances this season against left-handed pitchers. He has one hit — a two-RBI double.
