MIAMI — After struggling to find consistency for over two months, Pablo Lopez may finally be turning the corner.
Lopez gave up two earned runs over six innings on Monday night against the Los Angeles Dodgers with his lone mistake resulting in a two-run home run in the third inning by Will Smith.
The Marlins, however, couldn’t back up the effort with a victory as they fell 3-2 in 10 innings and dropped three of four overall to the team with Major League Baseball’s best record.
Trea Turner legged out an infield single - his 1,000th career hit - to lead off the 10th. Freddie Freeman then grounded out, scoring automatic runner Cody Bellinger to provide L.A. with the winning margin.
The Marlins put a threat together in the bottom half of the inning when they loaded the bases with one out against Dodgers closer Craig Kimbrel. Chris Martin relieved Kimbrel and proceeded to strike out Garrett Cooper and induced a pop-up to first from Jacob Stallings to pick up his first save of the season.
The Marlins fell to 21-28 in one-run games and 7-7 in extra-inning games. It was the third extra-inning game they played in their past five and second extra-inning loss in this series to the Dodgers.
But for Lopez, who has now pitched a career-high 146 innings, Monday’s start was a positive step as he tries to finish a season healthy for the first time in his career.
Lopez struck out six, walked three and allowed five hits over six innings.
It was the first time he pitched six innings and allowed two earned runs or fewer in back-to-back starts for the first time since he threw eight shutout innings against the Padres on May 7 and allowed only one earned run and struck out 11 over seven innings at home against the Brewers on May 13.
Lopez threw six scoreless innings in his previous start at Oakland last Tuesday.
It was also the first time since May 24-June 4 that Lopez pitched at least six innings in three consecutive starts.
The Smith home run, which went 415 feet to center, came off a 94.9 mph fastball and followed a two-out single by Freddie Freeman.
Prior to these past two starts, Lopez’s results fluctuated with seven starts where he allowed four or more earned runs and seven in which he allowed two runs or fewer. This followed a stellar first 10 starts this season when Lopez compiled a 1.83 ERA with 61 strikeouts, 15 walks and allowed only five home runs over 59 innings.
The Marlins pitched closer Tanner Scott in the seventh inning on Monday night with the game tied at 2. Scott, who endured his sixth blown save of the season this past Friday, struck out the side. Scott has 19 saves this season.
Dylan Floro pitched the ninth and worked around a leadoff walk to Justin Turner and a two-out single to Cody Bellinger to keep the Dodgers scoreless.
