Brandon Maurer began well, holding Miami hitless into the fifth inning. Then, he wore down in a hurry during his first start of the season for the Seattle Mariners.
“He was tired. He was exhausted,” Mariners manager Lloyd McClendon said. “He did good in the time he was in there.”
Seattle wound up losing its sixth in row, falling to the Marlins 3-2 Sunday.
Maurer did not figure into the decision as he allowed one run on two hits and two walks in 4 1-3 innings.
Maurer had a 2-0 lead amd held the Marlins without a hit until Garrett Jones reached on an infield single with one out in the fifth. The next two batters also reached base and he was pulled.
“I just lost my mechanics a little bit there, but I felt good through the first four,” Maurer said.
Adeiny Hechavarria hit a go-ahead sacrifice fly in the eighth inning after an instant replay went in Miami’s favor, and the Marlins completed a three-game sweep.
Mike Dunn (1-2) picked up the win in relief and Steve Cishek pitched the ninth for his third save of the season and 32nd in a row.
Tom Wilhelmsen (0-1) took the loss.
“Things just aren’t going well right now, but that’s OK. We’ll get out of this,” Wilhelmsen said. “We have a much better team than what we’re showing.”
Christian Yelich led off the eighth with a double off the left field wall to extend his hitting streak to 14 games. With one out, Giancarlo Stanton and Casey McGehee drew walks from Wilhelmsen to load the bases and help set up the Marlins’ fourth win in their last five.
Jones hit a grounder to first baseman Justin Smoak, whose throw home was late, allowing Yelich to score the tying run.
“I fielded it and threw it, but (Yelich) just got a heck of a jump,” Smoak said. “It was a bang-bang play.”
Marlins manager Mike Redmond immediately jumped out of the dugout to challenge the call, which was overturned after a two-minute and 20-second wait.
With the bases loaded and one out, Hechavarria followed with a sacrifice fly to right field against Wilhelmsen.
Corey Hart hit his second double of the afternoon to lead off the ninth against Cishek, who struck out Nick Franklin and Michael Saunders to leave pinch-runner Brad Miller stranded at third.
A crowd of 20,208 took in the first day game at Marlins Park with the retractable roof open. It was 78 degrees when the game began.
Seattle led 2-0 on a pair of sacrifice flies by Smoak and Dustin Ackley.
NOTES: The teams combined to use 12 pitchers. … Seattle will take the 2,570-mile journey home to host Houston on Monday night, sending ace RHP Felix Hernandez (3-0, 1.91) to the hill against LHP Dallas Keuchel (1-1, 3.50).
