Close plays don't go Marlins' way in finale

Maybe if Yimi García had thrown home instead of going for the double play in the ninth. Maybe if Isan Díaz hadn’t been thrown out trying to advance from second to third. Maybe if Miguel Rojas hadn’t been picked off at first and dislocated his finger in the process, the Marlins would be a .500 ballclub right now.

Instead, with a 3-2 loss to the Phillies at loanDepot park on Thursday afternoon, the Fish fell two games below and settled for a split in the four-game set before heading to Boston. It was a frustrating finale made all the more upsetting by the loss of Rojas, who might be headed for the injured list, and it was a game in which the Marlins had plenty of chances to get Pablo López the first home victory he sorely deserves.

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Per usual, López was fantastic on his home mound, bearing down when the Phillies scored two runs off him in the fourth and not yielding anything else in seven innings. He now has a 0.98 ERA in six starts in Miami -- the best home ERA of any pitcher in baseball with at least five home starts. But he’s 0-2 with four no-decisions because he just can’t seem to get the requisite support.

“My job is to control what I can control and execute every pitch,” López said. “You have the ball in your hand, and you can control what you can control, which is focusing and having a plan and executing your pitch.”

For the most part, López did exactly that. But a few mistakes by his mates made all the difference in this one.

It was a 2-0 game in the bottom of the fifth, when Miami loaded the bases against Spencer Howard with no outs. Philadelphia manager Joe Girardi summoned Ranger Suárez, and Marlins manager Don Mattingly decided it was too early in the game -- and the inning -- to pinch-hit for López.

“We knew there was nobody out,” Mattingly said. “We knew he was staying in the game pitching-wise and knew we were gonna hit Aggy [pinch-hitter Jesús Aguilar] after him. You have two shots, theoretically, because you have Aguilar and then [Rojas due up].”

They didn’t get that second shot.

López struck out, as pitchers tend to do. Aguilar’s fly ball to center allowed Sandy León to tag up from third and score to make it 2-1. But Díaz hesitated tagging from second to third and was thrown out when cutoff man Rhys Hoskins fielded center fielder Odúbel Herrera’s throw and fired to third for the final out of the inning.

In the eighth, the Marlins had two on with one out when Rojas got picked off at first by Phillies catcher Rafael Marchan. The Marlins managed to tie the tilt when Garrett Cooper, who had been summoned from the bench after getting scratched from Wednesday’s game with an oblique issue, ripped a game-tying RBI single. But the Rojas play proved detrimental both in terms of its impact on the inning and its impact on Rojas himself.

The game’s biggest play, though, came in the ninth.

It was a 2-2 game with one out in the top half of the frame. Herrera was at third base after a leadoff triple, and Matt Joyce was at first after an intentional walk. García, who has been fantastic in the Marlins’ closer role this year, got Ronald Torreyes to hit a comebacker to the mound. García fielded it and tossed to second without hesitation to try to initiate a double play.

“It’s a risky proposition,” Girardi said of García’s split-second decision.

Smart play? Bad play? As usual, the result makes the decision. In this case, García was wrong solely because it didn’t work. Díaz got the out at second, but his throw to first was just barely beaten out by Torreyes, as Herrera scooted home with the go-ahead run.

“No regret,” García said. “I felt I had the chance to do the double play right there, so that’s what I did.”

With perfect execution, the play may have worked. But the Marlins were imperfect in multiple facets on this day, and it cost them a chance to maintain some recent momentum and get back to .500 for the first time since April 17.