What Miami learned from 2nd loss to Bucs

MIAMI -- Let’s cut to the chase: The Marlins dropped their second straight to the Pirates, 3-2, on Tuesday night at loanDepot park.

What were some of the developments?

Castano’s cutter
Left-hander Daniel Castano compiled a 2.86 ERA (7 ER/22 IP) through his first four starts this season; he has an 8.00 ERA (8 ER/9 IP) over his last two.

All five homers Castano has given up this year have been on his cutter, which is his most-thrown pitch. Three of those have come on the first pitch, including Jake Marisnick’s leadoff shot in the third.

“I want to look through that a little bit this week,” Castano said. “Something 0-0 maybe we shy away from, but at the same time, I had [Ke’Bryan] Hayes 3-0 and I throw two [cutters] and I get a popup to center field and then I cruise through the innings.”

Overall, Castano permitted three runs over five innings on 64 pitches. Oneil Cruz also got him on a cutter for a two-out RBI triple in the fifth. Jason Delay followed with an RBI single off a changeup.

“Maybe figure out when's a better time to use it,” Castano said. “But I felt really good. I felt like I could have gone six, seven innings, so that was really frustrating to not get through the fifth [unscathed] with two outs. I was just right there, and one inning away from getting six [innings] and three [runs, which is] a lot better than five and three.”

Hernandez’s new role
Since being recalled this past Friday, right-hander Elieser Hernandez has tossed four scoreless innings in two relief outings. On Tuesday, he kept the Marlins in the ballgame by shutting down the Bucs from the sixth through eighth.

Prior to the demotion, Hernandez posted a 5.91 ERA in nine starts. His 18 home runs surrendered were the most in the Majors when he was sent down after his June 3 opener/bulk outing against San Francisco (4 1/3 IP, 8 ER). But take that away -- his previous MLB appearance before Saturday -- and Hernandez has not been scored upon in five relief frames with five strikeouts.

“He could be a guy coming out of your 'pen that shuts teams down that one time through and it's usually pretty good,” manager Don Mattingly said

Cooper day to day
Hours after being named an All-Star for the first time, Garrett Cooper was replaced in the top of the seventh inning due to a contusion on the inside of his left knee.

In the bottom of the sixth, Cooper fouled Tyler Beede's 95.3 mph four-seamer off the knee, though he finished the at-bat by striking out looking on the next pitch. Afterwards, Cooper recalled a similar situation from 2019, when Brewers outfielder Christian Yelich fractured his kneecap in Miami.

“It's all right,” Cooper said. “The knee's swollen, so hopefully in a day or two [I’ll] be good. Nothing’s broken, so that's all that matters.”

Miami can ill afford to lose Cooper, who ranked 10th in the National League in average (.299), 12th in on-base percentage (.367), 17th in OPS (.827) and 25th in slugging (.460) entering Tuesday.

Since July 4, the Marlins have scored three runs or fewer in seven of nine games. During that stretch, they have gone 4-5. Miami has been without Jorge Soler, who began a rehab assignment with Double-A Pensacola on Tuesday, and All-Star Jazz Chisholm Jr.

“It seems like it's always kind of like that in the game,” Mattingly said. “Your team seems to roll, either gets it going scoring some runs [or] you get stretches where you don't.

“You hit these little lulls [where] it seems like you don't score, and that's when you're hoping that one or two guys is hot and kind of carries you in a game like tonight. We give up three runs. If one guy is hot and hits a three-run homer, we win a game somehow. And that's what you really hope for when your team is in general not swinging the bats together.”