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It was a pitcher’s duel on Tuesday night in Atlanta, as the Miami Marlins defeated the Atlanta Braves 1-0, behind 14 strikeouts from Jose Fernandez. The 14 strikeouts tied a career high for Fernandez, as he pitched eight innings of shutout baseball, giving up three hits and no walks. Marlins closer Steve Cishek pitched the ninth to pick up his fourth save of the year.
On the other side, Braves starter Alex Wood was also dominant as he struck out a career high 11 Marlins. Wood went eight innings while giving up the lone run of the game, a Casey McGehee RBI single in the fourth inning. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, Wood became the first National League pitcher to lose back-to-back starts despite allowing one run over eight innings since Tom Seaver in 1973.
The Marlins and Braves will be finishing up their three game series today at 12:10. Miami will be sending out Nate Eovaldi, while the Braves will counter with Aaron Harang.
Meanwhile in Tampa, the Rays defeated the Minnesota Twins 7-3, behind a complete game performance from David Price. Price scattered six hits, while striking out 12 to pick up his third win of the season. Rays manager Joe Maddon was pleased with Price’s performance on Tuesday night.
“His pitch count was in was in really good order, I thought his fastball was actually better towards the end of the game than maybe in the middle of the game,” Maddon said. “I’m always looking at those kinds of signs, velocity was good, strike throwing was good, delivery was good, he wasn’t coming out of his delivery, everything looked like it was in order.”
The Rays offense was led by David DeJesus who had three hits while driving in his first three runs of the season. DeJesus was mired in a hitting slump, but worked with hitting coach Derek Shelton prior to the game, and was able to break out of it against the Twins.
“We were out here early, me and Shelt (Shelton), we’re trying to just stay relaxed, we were trying to use my hands,” DeJesus said. “During BP, Joe (Maddon) was like spread out and just use your hands, don’t use your body at all, and I felt like I was able to bring that into the game and I was able to get some pitches to hit, where sometimes you’re in the game, guys don’t throw it over the middle at the time, so I was able to get pitches and do something with them.”
The Rays will close out their series tonight against the Twins at 7:10.
For audio from the games, click below:
BernsteinFNN (Marlins Radio Call)
VanHorneFNN (Marlins Radio Call)
