ATLANTA — Once again, the Miami Marlins fell short.
This time, it was a 2-1 walk-off loss to the Atlanta Braves on Saturday at Truist Park to drop Miami to 55-77 on the season. Robbie Grossman drew a two-out, bases-loaded walk against Steven Okert to force in the winning run.
It was Miami’s ninth walk-off loss of the season. The Marlins are now 21-30 in one-run games this season.
“When you lose, it’s always frustrating,” Marlins manager Don Mattingly said. “Especially when we kind of hang in there all night.”
And the Marlins nearly hung on for at least another inning.
Miami tied the game in the top of the ninth on a Jerar Encarnacion bases-loaded sacrifice fly against Kenley Jansen that scored Nick Fortes, who led off the inning with a single and advanced all the way to third after Brian Anderson followed with a single and JJ Bleday drew a walk.
Encarnacion swung at the first pitch he saw from Jansen, a cutter near the heart of the plate, and lined it to the gap in right-center field with an exit velocity of 107 mph but right at Grossman.
“Bring that run in however I could,” Encarnacion said.
Added Mattingly: “Off Kenley, that’s exactly what you want to do. He throws the cutter out there. He’s going to stay out over the plate. Get something you can shoot that way. Honestly, we’re unlucky that the ball’s not [falling in] the gap somewhere because he hit it square. It just happened to be right at [Grossman]. If it’s splitting, we probably get three runs there — at least two and then have second and third with nobody out.”
Charles Leblanc then popped out and Miguel Rojas hit a flyout to left field after his at-bat was interrupted with a 2-2 count for about 10 minutes due to an umpire injury.
With the game tied in the ninth and usual closer Tanner Scott unavailable after tweaking his back in the weight room, Mattingly went with Okert to try to push the game to extra innings.
He quickly got into trouble, with runners on second and third with one out after a Matt Olson leadoff single and Michael Harris II one-out double. The Marlins intentionally walked Vaughn Grissom to load the bases before Okert got Travis d’Arnaud to line out to Luke Wiliams at third base for the second out of the inning.
Okert got the count to 1-1 before ending the plate appearance with three consecutive balls to issue the game-deciding free pass.
“There was great effort from the team today,” Okert said. “Just terrible for me. ... Couldn’t land a slider today.”
The only other run came in the fourth inning, when Austin Riley got hold of a low-and-inside curveball from Edward Cabrera and sent it to left field for his 35th home run of the season.
Other than that, Cabrera was dominant against a tough Braves lineup. He struck out seven over five innings and worked out of early situations with runners on base by inducing a pair of groundball double plays.
Cabrera has now held opponents to one earned run or fewer in seven of his nine starts this season, including five of six since coming off the injured list last month. His ERA is 2.39.
— Garrett Cooper was a late scratch from the lineup due to personal reasons.
