Fresh off a big ninth-inning rally, the visiting Miami Marlins will look to earn a split of their four-game series with the Washington Nationals on Monday night.
The Marlins were three outs away from losing their third straight game in the series before rallying for six runs in the ninth inning of a 6-2 win on Sunday.
Miami will go for the split behind right-hander Ryan Gusto (1-3, 3.98 ERA), who will oppose Nationals rookie left-hander Will Dion (1-1, 3.67).
Gusto is 1-1 with a 1.85 ERA in August, and the Marlins are 4-1 in his starts. Gusto has pitched 9 2/3 scoreless innings over his past two starts, including 5 2/3 shutout innings in a 4-0 win against the Boston Red Sox on Wednesday.
“His ability to buckle down when he had some people on base and had some traffic, to get out of it,” Marlins manager Clayton McCullough said of the reason for Gusto’s success. “He really did a good job of negating hard contact. His stuff was good.”
Gusto is 0-0 with a 4.50 ERA in two career games (one start) against Washington. The start came 10 days ago, when he gave up five hits in four scoreless innings in a 3-2 home win.
Dion has made 18 appearances this season, all in relief, and will kick off a bullpen game for the Nationals. He started the season with the Cleveland Guardians and pitched three innings in a 6-3 loss to the Nationals on May 26. He allowed two runs on five hits in a no-decision.
Washington’s bullpen was the culprit Sunday when the Nationals took a 2-0 lead into the ninth, and relievers Max Kranick and Tom Cosgrove gave up six runs on just two hits. The inning opened with a bunt single by Esteury Ruiz, followed by three walks, a hit batter, a costly error, a sacrifice fly and a steal of home before Otto Lopez hit a two-run home run.
It was Washington’s 35th blown save of the season, two behind the major league mark set by the Chicago White Sox in 2024. The 2021 Nationals registered 36 blown saves, now a National League record.
“There’s no way to sugarcoat that one,” Nationals manager Blake Butera said. “That’s about as bad as it gets, as frustrating as it gets.”
Lopez’s two-run homer came off Cosgrove.
“We never stopped competing until the end, and we created a situation,” Lopez said. “We just feel like, no matter what, we’ve got to finish the game.”
The Marlins managed only four hits on the day — two by Agustin Ramirez — and Dax Fulton pitched a scoreless inning for his first major league win.
All-Star shortstop CJ Abrams made his first start at second base since 2022 in place of an ailing Xavier Edwards, with Nasim Nunez taking over at short. Abrams looked comfortable at second and made a leaping catch on a liner to short center field.
“I thought he turned a nice double play and had a nice play on that soft liner to center field,” Butera said. “I thought he looked good.”
The news off the field was better on several fronts for the Nationals.
Butera said Cade Cavalli is fine after leaving his start Saturday in the fourth inning after he was hit on the right ankle by a comebacker. And at Double-A Harrisburg on Sunday, All-Star outfielder James Wood played seven innings in left field and went 1-for-3 with a homer in his first rehab game since going on the injured list with a left oblique strain on Aug. 4.
Butera said Sunday he planned to speak with Wood regarding whether he will play another rehab game before returning to the Nationals.
–Field Level Media
