The Miami Marlins will look to continue a pair of impressive streaks on Friday night when they open a three-game series against the host Pittsburgh Pirates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Marlins have back-to-back shutouts while extending their winning streak to a season-high five games<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Miami followed an 8-0 home victory over Arizona on Wednesday with a 2-0 triumph against the Diamondbacks on Thursday afternoon. Tyler Phillips yielded two hits and two walks while striking out five batters over five-plus scoreless innings for the Marlins in the series finale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve made a goal to win four games a week, and I think a lot of us have taken that really personally and really like a lot to heart,\u201d Phillips said. \u201cThe pitching staff coming in and just attacking, man. Early in the year, we didn\u2019t do it, and I think now we\u2019re really taking that to heart.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Otto Lopez, who leads the majors with a .344 batting average, recorded his major-league-best 29th multi-hit performance of the season on Thursday. He had two of the five hits for the Marlins, who have won eight of nine contests on the heels of a season-worst five-game losing streak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019re playing a much cleaner brand (of ball), pitching at a much higher level, and I think we\u2019ll continue to get better,\u201d Miami manager Clayton McCullough said. \u201cWe cut down the walks as a group, and I think we\u2019ll see more and more days and stretches like this because of the talent we have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis is certainly the best stretch we\u2019ve played consecutively this season, and (it) comes at a good time. Hopefully, we can just continue to play well and give ourselves some cracks in games.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Marlins will turn to Sandy Alcantara (5-4, 4.33 ERA) to start the Friday game. The Pirates will go with fellow right-hander Braxton Ashcraft (5-3, 3.28).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Alcantara pocketed a pair of wins after working seven innings in each of his last two starts. The 2022 National League Cy Young Award winner allowed one run on five hits and a walk while striking out seven in a 4-1 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays on Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Alcantara, 30, is 2-0 with a 2.62 ERA in eight career appearances (seven starts) vs. Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ashcraft won four consecutive decisions before matching a career high for runs allowed (six) in five innings during a 6-3 setback to the Atlanta Braves on Saturday. He acknowledged he was struggling to command his off-speed pitches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s sort of a cat-and-mouse game, being able to keep guys off-balance,\u201d Ashcraft said. \u201cIt starts with being able to offer four or five of your pitches in the zone whenever you need to. I didn\u2019t land my curveball very often, and the slider wasn\u2019t competitive. I was just kind of pitching with fastballs (vs. the Braves), and you can\u2019t do that against a (team) that really hits fastballs well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ashcraft, 26, didn\u2019t fare well in his lone career outing against the Marlins, allowing one run on one hit in one-third of an inning of a no-decision on June 11, 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Brandon Lowe belted his team-leading 16th homer, and rookie Rafael Flores Jr. added the first of his career in Pittsburgh\u2019s 8-6 setback to the visiting Los Angeles Dodgers on Thursday. The defeat was the Pirates\u2019 fifth in their past six games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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The Miami Marlins will look to continue a pair of impressive streaks on Friday night when they open a three-game series against the host Pittsburgh Pirates. The Marlins have back-to-back shutouts while extending their winning streak to a season-high five games Miami followed an 8-0 home victory over Arizona on Wednesday with a 2-0 triumph […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12903],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-416085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-12903"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=416085"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416085\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":416086,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416085\/revisions\/416086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}