Phillies first baseman Ryan Howard made a diving stop to his right of a Dee Gordon grounder to begin the Marlins two-run fifth inning.
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After Morgan walked Giancarlo Stanton, Martin Prado doubled home Gordon and, one out later, J.T. Realmuto singled home Stanton for a 2-0 lead.
Stanton suffered a Grad 3 groin strain while running the bases on August 13 and initially was expected to miss the remainder of the season.
Two NL East foes will meet for the last time this season, as the Miami Marlins will battle Philadelphia Phillies for one last series this weekend at Citizens Bank Park.
If it’s a Friday night, that means it’s an Adam Morgan start, because due to absolutely no anecdotal evidence at all, I feel nearly every single one of Morgan’s outings this year seem to fall on a weekend.
Derek Dietrich pulled the Marlins even with his first career pinch-hit homer in the eighth, connecting off Edubray Ramos. “We left some guys out there with sacrifice-fly situations or if someone hits a ball in a gap there somewhere, you put a game like this away”.
Herrmann (1-2) had not won in the big leagues since pitching four innings in relief during a 16-inning game for the Cleveland Indians on August 31, 2011. Jimmy Paredes just wanted to go home, and with the bases loaded and one out in that 13th inning, Jimmy smacked a line drive to right field, over the reach of the five-man Joe Maddon-style infield to bring Peter Bourjos in for the win. And hey, Adam did enough to keep the runs off the board, though he only lasted 4 2/3 innings. The Marlins elected to intentionally walk Freddy Galvis to load the bases, but Paredes ripped a single into the outfield to end a long night in Philadelphia.
The teams combined to strand 24 runners and struck out a combined 30 times.
The Phillies will be countering with Adam Morgan, who last pitched against the Washington Nationals, when allowed three hits and two runs to the Nationals.
Yes, the Phillies are not going to be competing for a playoff spot in the final few weeks, but they’re going to do their best to play spoiler. Maikel Franco holds 129 hits with 56 runs, 22 homers and 75 RBI. This particular one, No. 379 in his career, moved him into a tie for 70th on Major League Baseball’s career list, equaling Hall of Famers Orlando Cepeda and Tony Perez. Cameron Rupp doubles to deep left field. Crawford hit.250 this season, split between Double-A Reading and Triple-A Lehigh Valley. Morgan did not allow an earned run, the 14th straight start by a Phillies pitcher in which they yielded three runs or fewer. He leads NL shortstops in fielding percentage (.996) since the All-Star break. Stanton suffered a Grade 3 groin strain while running the bases on August 13 and initially was expected to miss the remainder of the season.
The plan wasn’t to play the entire game his first time in right field, and Stanton was replaced in the sixth inning by Ichiro Suzuki. He had made five pinch-hit appearances since returning last week.
Phillies: Top prospect J.P. Crawford, thought to be a candidate for a September call-up, had arthroscopic surgery on his left knee to remove loose bodies.
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That was the end of the road for Morgan (2-10, 5.49 ERA), who was pulled after 4 1/3 innings in which he gave up seven hits.
