Over 235,000 Major League Baseball games have been played in the history of the league, but somehow the sport still manages to give fans things they haven’t seen before—or have rarely ever seen, at least. That was the case with the outing for Marlins starter Edward Cabrera against the Mets on Friday afternoon.
Cabrera was chased out of the game early, throwing 85 pitches in just 2.2 innings before exiting. He struggled to find the strike zone, throwing just 47 strikes on the day. He struck out four but walked seven, allowing two early runs to put Miami in a hole before he was pulled.
To make things truly weird, however, he did not surrender a hit while in the game.
In the third inning, Cabrera walked Brandon Nimmo, Starling Marte and Francisco Lindor to load the bases. He struck out Pete Alonso and Jeff McNeil, but then walked in a run against Mark Canha, handing the Mets their first score of the game. He was pulled after his fourth walk of the inning, but an infield single by Daniel Vogelbach off of Huascar Brazobán drove in Marte to add another earned run to his column.
According to Tyler Kepner of The New York Times, this is just the second time since 1990 that an MLB pitcher has failed to get past 2.2 innings with seven walks and no hits allowed. The only other person to post this very strange stat line: former Blue Jays starter Brandon Morrow in ’14. His outing on April 26 against the Red Sox that year was even more bizarre, as he walked eight and allowed four earned runs before being pulled, throwing just 26 strikes on 65 pitches.
Edward Cabrera's 7th walk of the day gives the Mets their first run of the game pic.twitter.com/15O8YksNNp
— SNY (@SNYtv) April 7, 2023
The Mets added four more runs, but the Marlins put up three in the top of the eighth inning to cut the lead to 6–3. New York ended up sealing the deal in the bottom half of the eighth by scoring another three runs, ultimately picking up the 9–3 win.
