MIAMI — Daniel Castano has described his cutter as a pitch with which he “lives and dies.” It’s his most-used pitch this season, one the Miami Marlins’ left-handed pitcher had thrown 42.9 percent of the time entering his Tuesday start against the Pittsburgh Pirates after beginning to add it to his arsenal last season.
“I’d rather get beat by that pitch than my fifth-best pitch,” Castano said.
The Pirates got the better his cutter twice, and that proved key in the Marlins’ 3-2 loss on Tuesday at loanDepot park that dropped Miami to 41-45 on the season and 0-2 so far in this series against Pittsburgh (38-50).
Jake Marisnick ambushed a first-pitch cutter to lead off the third inning and sent the pitch a projected 397 feet to left field for a solo home run to open scoring.
In the fifth, Oneil Cruz lifted a low cutter on a 2-1 count to right field for an RBI triple that made the score 2-1. Cruz then scored one pitch later on a Jason Delay single.
Miami recorded just five hits and scored runs on a Joey Wendle sacrifice fly in the third inning that scored Brian Anderson and a Nick Fortes single that scored Miguel Rojas in the fifth.
Elieser Hernandez threw three shutout innings out of the bullpen and Richard Bleier pitched a scoreless ninth to give the Marlins a chance to put together a rally that never came to fruition.
Jesus Aguilar hit a two-out single in the ninth and Luke Williams (who pinch-ran for Aguilar) stole second to put the tying run in scoring position but Bryan De La Cruz struck out swinging to end the game.
Garrett Cooper, officially named an All-Star about three hours before first pitch, exited Tuesday’s game after fouling a pitch off his knee in the sixth inning.
