Thompson resilient but Fish drop 6th straight

Right-hander Zach Thompson was dealing for five innings Saturday, but manager Don Mattingly decided to take him out of the game in hopes that the bullpen would keep the Reds in check. It didn’t happen as the Marlins lost the game, 7-4 at Great American Ball Park.

The Marlins have now lost six consecutive games and their record dropped to 51-73.

The game was tied at 2 when Mattingly decided right-hander Anthony Bender was the right man for the sixth inning -- a move that proved to be disastrous as the Reds scored four runs. Pinch-hitter Tyler Stephenson highlighted the scoring with a two-run double.

“[Manager] David [Bell] told me, ‘Hey, you’re up.’ OK, here we go. Just really looked for a good pitch,” Stephenson said. “The guy [Bender] threw a lot of sinkers and threw hard so I tried to ambush him early to get something elevated. I fouled the first ball off. I got one that kind of flattened out over the zone and drove it the other way. Just tried to simplify it as much as possible.”

The Marlins had a chance to at least tie the score in the eighth inning off Mychal Givens. Brian Anderson doubled home Jazz Chisholm Jr. to make it a 6-3 game. Two batters later, with right-hander Michael Lorenzen on the mound, Jorge Alfaro singled to drive in Jesús Aguilar and cut it to a two-run game.

There was still only one out and the tying run was at first base when Bryan De La Cruz hit into an inning-ending double play. It was the Marlins’ fifth double play of the game. They were also 2-for-8 with runners in scoring position.

“The good thing is, we were getting people out there and giving us a chance,” Mattingly said. “The bad thing is, we ended a few innings [with the double plays]. You know your guys aren’t trying to do it.”

It was a game that saw Thompson get off to a slow start in the first inning, when he allowed a two-run homer to Nick Castellanos. It didn’t help that he was often behind in the count. After that, however, Thompson retired 13 of the final 15 hitters he faced. He ended up striking out three batters in the game.

“My stuff plays so much better when I can get ahead of guys and trust the movement of my pitches,” Thompson said. “I didn’t try to overpower anyone. I tried to throw strikes as best as I could. It allowed me to cruise along pretty well.”

Mattingly was impressed by what he saw from his young pitcher.

“It looked like he got his cutter going,” Mattingly said. “He stayed in the strike zone. He had some good innings there.”

But Thompson was going to face the top of the lineup for the third time in the game and Mattingly thought Bender had a better chance of getting those hitters out.

Remember, Bender had 22 scoreless innings to start his career. Plus, he had a 2.44 ERA, but he allowed four runs on three hits on Saturday. His sinker didn’t have much life.

“It looked like a lot of balls stayed up and flat. [The sinker] didn’t have the same down movement,” Mattingly said. “… He has the kind of the delivery that once it gets off-sync a little bit, that’s when you see the ball flatten out and be up. The more consistent he can be with his delivery, the more he will have the down movement and get the ball where he wants it.”

It looked like Thompson could have pitched longer than five innings, but he wasn’t going to second guess Mattingly’s decision.

“I just go along with what Donny says. We have a pretty good bullpen back there,” Thompson said. “... I trust what he has to say and I just follow along. I felt really good overall, though.”