The Braves have used a torrid offense to hide what’s ailing Mike Minor – scoring 22 runs in his previous two starts – and won in spite of his struggles. But Wednesday night in their series opener against Mark Buehrle and the Marlins, Minor had nowhere to turn.
He got ambushed for six hits and eventually six runs after his nearly perfect first turn through the order. He failed to get out of the fifth inning for the second straight start and lost 8-4 to the Marlins.
“I feel like I let the team down, I let myself down and the organization down, and the fans,” said Minor, now 2-3 with a 7.09 ERA. “The fans don’t come to the ballpark to see me walk batters and go 3-2 on pitchers when they’re up to the plate.”
Minor struggled with his command in the middle innings, especially with his offspeed pitches. He said his change-up and breaking ball were in the dirt, so Marlins hitters could wait on the fastball.
“They weren’t even competitive right out of the hand, already too low to even bite at,” Minor said. “It’s easy for them to sit back and wait on a good pitch and hit it, when I can’t throw anything over the plate that’s offspeed.”
The Braves fell to 3-7 in the NL East this season and had to surrender first place back to the Nationals, now one-half game up after a win over the Pirates.
The Marlins played small ball, with six of their first seven hits going for singles, and scored on a steal of home by Jose Reyes in the fifth inning. They stole four bases in all to extend their major-league lead to 44. They played big ball too with a two-run home run by Giancarlo Stanton, formerly known as Mike, for key insurance runs in the seventh off Cristhian Martinez.
Stanton made a diving play in right field to take a two-run extra-base hit from Jason Heyward in the fourth inning that would have tied the game 3-3 and changed its course.
The Braves matched the Marlins with 10 hits, reaching double-digits for the fifth time in six games, but went 1-for-9 with runners in scoring position. The Braves threatened with a three-run sixth before Stanton’s home run all but quelled comeback hopes.
As hot as the Braves have been, the Marlins are on a roll of their own. They lead the majors with a 12-3 record in May.
The Braves fell to 1-2 on this home stand with a fourth straight rough outing from Minor. And in case it might seem like a good time for them to dip back into the minor leagues, the recently-demoted Jair Jurrjens had an even worse night in Triple-A Gwinnett Wednesday. Jurrjens gave up 11 runs (10 earned) on 12 hits, including two home runs, in 4 2/3 innings to the Buffalo Bisons.
“I’ve seen three, four solid innings and one big inning just kind of unravels on him,” Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said of Minor. “That’s just part of big league experience, getting through those innings and minimizing the damage. That comes with running him back and there and saying, ‘Hey, let’s get through it.’”
Minor has given up six or more runs in each of his past four starts, while going 0-2 with an 11.95 ERA. He has allowed 27 earned runs in his past 20 2/3 innings. This is after showing such promise in a three-game stretch while going 2-0 with a 1.69 ERA.
That kind of schizophrenic behavior is showing up in Minor’s individual games now too, with stretches of being really effective or really not. The first time through the Marlins order Wednesday, Minor gave up only a walk. The second time through he gave up three runs on three hits, a walk and a hit batter.
The big blow was a two-run double by Austin Kearns after Minor had fallen behind 2-0.
“The first three innings he did whatever he wanted to that lineup,” Gonzalez said. “He pitched in, changed speeds, threw a good breaking ball. The fourth inning (Omar) Infante gets a hit. He hits (Hanley) Ramirez trying to go in on him. And it just kind of unravels on him. It’s a little complex. All of a sudden those type of innings happen to him. That’s a young pitcher. You have to be patient with him and get him through those type of innings. He will be better off on the other end.”
The Marlins came back with back-to-back singles to lead off the fifth. Then with runners first and third, the Marlins scored on a double steal, after Infante took off from first, drawing a throw from Brian McCann to second that prompted Reyes to take off from third base. Reyes has 380 stolen bases for his career, but that was his first steal of home.
Tyler Pastornicky got the Braves a 1-0 lead in the first inning with a leadoff single and came around to score following a Martin Prado double and a Freddie Freeman groundout. Prado went 3-for-4 with two doubles.
“We had him early on but then we kind of let off the hook,” Pastornicky said off Buehrle. “Then he settled in and started making his pitches.”
