Bouncing back from historic night, Marlins spoil Braves in opener

MIAMI – It’s human nature to drag when things aren’t going well.

Twenty-four hours ago, the Marlins were on the wrong side of history for Shohei Ohtani’s record-setting feat in a blowout loss. But with the season winding down, manager Skip Schumaker and his coaching staff have reiterated how their ballclub can impact the postseason picture.

Miami did its part in Friday night’s 4-3 victory over Atlanta at loanDepot park. With the defeat, the Braves remained two games behind the Mets for the final National League Wild Card spot.

Setting the tone was the pitching staff, which bounced back after coughing up a season-high 20 runs on Thursday. Right-hander Valente Bellozo went 5 1/3 innings, while four relievers held the Braves scoreless over the remaining 3 2/3 frames.

Bellozo, who received a no-decision on Aug. 2 in Atlanta after giving up two runs across five innings, attacked the Braves with more fastballs than cutters. He also worked around trouble: a leadoff single in the first and runners on the corners in the second. With the bases loaded in the third, Bellozo limited Atlanta to Jorge Soler’s sacrifice fly.

“Really good overall,” said Bellozo, who also surrendered solo homers to Orlando Arcia and Ramón Laureano. “I think we attacked a really good team. They're fighting for the playoffs, so they want to play hard and fight for that position over there. I think we did a really good job attacking. I faced them when they called me up again, and I think we [made] a really good adjustment about what they're thinking about and adjusted.”

Clinging to a one-run lead in the seventh, Schumaker turned to righty Declan Cronin with two runners on and two outs to face Soler. He induced a broken-bat groundout to second on a slider.

Cronin, who was honored pregame as the Marlins’ Rookie of the Year by the local BBWAA chapter, has been doing that all season. His 58.2% ground-ball rate entering the game ranked in the 95th percentile, and he had given up just one homer in 67 innings. Cronin returned to the mound for a scoreless eighth, and righty Jesus Tinoco retired the Braves in order in the ninth for his second save.

“It speaks a lot to the guys in this clubhouse, especially the pitching staff,” Cronin said. “We had our normal pre-series meeting today and just kind of all agreed to flush it and go after the Braves and try to spoil another playoff team's run. So I think what you saw today is a great example of what baseball is all about, where it doesn't really matter what you did the night before. You always have another opportunity to come out here and compete.”

Four consecutive batters reached in a three-run first inning against veteran righty Charlie Morton. Connor Norby singled and Jesús Sánchez walked before RBI hits from Jake Burger (ground-rule double) and Kyle Stowers (single). Jonah Bride capped the scoring with a sacrifice fly.

“I think with that group, you kind of have to, like, poke at them a little bit, try to figure out what they're doing, because there's a lot of young guys over there, and there's a simplicity to that,” Morton said. “Like, a young guy coming up gets a shot at the big leagues. I've seen it before, and I know that those kinds of guys, you might have to be -- it might not be as simple, because they're so simple in their approach.

“It's like, 'Well … this guy's best pitch is a four-seamer and a curveball. So what am I going to do? I'm going to look four-seamer, curveball. Where does he throw? Out over the plate, down and away.' And that's exactly what I did. And that's when I got in trouble.”

Following his leadoff walk in the fifth, Norby created a run by stealing second base, moving to third on Sánchez’s groundout to second and scoring on a wild pitch with Burger at the plate.

“It's a kudos to our guys for kind of wiping yesterday,” Burger said. “Obviously, a historic moment in baseball. It's cool and awesome to watch. But we also got our butts kicked, and so just able to kind of reset and come back here and kind of wipe the slate clean, in a sense. [We] won the first game of that [Dodgers] series, and then let the last two kind of be blowouts. It's a young team, but I think overall it showed a lot of maturity for bouncing back the way we did, not letting one single game kind of wrap us up.”