Breaking down what went wrong in the Marlins’ series-opening loss to the Cardinals

A lot of the issues the Miami Marlins have experienced during the season compounded during their 4-2 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals to open a three-game series at Busch Stadium.

Minimal scoring opportunities — and one potential early opportunity taken away from them.

Injuries forcing manager Don Mattingly to make tough decisions in a late-and-close game.

Small mistakes here and there — from a bad route on a flyball putting the tying run on the board to another pickoff at first base resulting in an inning-ending double play — stacking up on each other throughout the nine innings.

The bullpen being forced into yet another high-leverage situation.

There’s a lot to unpack from this loss, one that dropped the Marlins to 29-37 and into last place in the National League East, so let’s get to it.

The final blow

The Marlins kept pace with the Cardinals (33-33) until the eighth inning when St. Louis struck for the final time.

Dylan Floro gave up two runs in the decisive inning, with Tyler O’Neill’s RBI double off the left-field wall driving in Dylan Carlson, who led off the inning with a walk.

Floro has allowed at least one walk in six of his last 11 relief appearances after issuing walks in just three of his first 20 outings of the season.

Floro’s 31 relief appearances are the most on the Marlins’ roster and tied for the third-most in MLB. Most, if not all, have come in high-leverage situations.

“We’ve been pushing guys hard honestly,” Mattingly said. “We’ve had to. You’re in games. “It seems like we’re in a stretch of time where our back-end guys are in a lot of games. So you know, when you do that, you’re usually probably not getting the very best version of everyone, I think.”

Troubles with a short bench

The Marlins were already down to three position players on the bench after they placed infielder Jose Devers on the 10-day injured list pregame and replaced him with relief pitcher Luis Madero.

The short bench was even shorter with Corey Dickerson unavailable while dealing with foot soreness. That left the Marlins with two healthy position players on Monday for substitution purposes in first baseman Lewin Diaz and catcher Sandy Leon.

This happened even though infielder Deven Marrerro is with the team in St. Louis. Like Madero, Marrerro was not on the team’s 40-man roster as of Monday afternoon, meaning someone would have had to have been taken off the 40-man roster in order for either one to be added to the active roster prior to Monday’s game

The Marlins transferred third baseman Brian Anderson to the 60-day injured list to free up the roster spot for Madero.

“It’s something that we talked about before, and it’s a little more complicated than just dropping the guy in,” Mattingly said. “It’s the roster spot. With all the injuries, it’s the total roster spots, so that means somebody has to go off your [40-man] roster. I mean, it’s something that you do discuss and you know the shortfalls of what you’re getting into. We planned on a three-man bench. It ended up being two and we knew we were gonna be playing short, but it’s something that you understand and it’s more of a roster crunch. It’s a little more complicated just bringing a guy in.”

The decision, however, handcuffed Mattingly in the seventh inning. With the game tied 2-2 and Isan Diaz on first base with one out, Mattingly used reliever John Curtiss as a pinch-hitter for the pitcher’s spot in the lineup instead of Leon or Lewin Diaz. With the game tied, Mattingly said he didn’t want to use his backup catcher in Leon and didn’t like the matchup Cardinals left-handed reliever Genesis Cabrera presented to left-handed hitter Lewin Diaz.

Instead, Curtiss struck out trying to bunt Isan Diaz over to second and Diaz was picked off at first base for the inning-ending out.

“When you’ve got two guys sitting there and you know that’s all the players you have and one of your backup catcher,” Mattingly said, “it’s one of those in the seventh in a tie game that you’re not feeling great about that. You really try to play for one run there, get the bunt down and get [Jon Berti] a chance to drive in a run. Obviously we didn’t do that very well either — the base running or the bunting.”

So... those plays at home

Two bang-bang plays at home plate one inning apart tested MLB’s replay — with mixed results in Mattingly’s eyes.

The first of those two came in the second when Adam Duvall attempted to score from first on a Magneuris Sierra double to center. Duvall slid home and believed to have beaten out the tag from Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina, who dropped the ball on the relay while crowding Duvall’s path to the plate. Duvall slid past home and ran back to the base to touch it just to be safe. Molina, with the ball in his glove, tagged Duvall prior to the second touch of home. Duvall was ruled out and the call stood after a three-minute, two-second review.

“I knew they were going to look at it,” Duvall said. “It’s a play at the plate, but it’s just unfortunate that they didn’t have an angle to see me touch home plate because I firmly believe and I’ve looked at some of the film and went back and looked at where my hand was. It’s hard for me to believe that I didn’t touch home plate.”

The second play came in the third. The Cardinals’ Carlson attempted essentially the same play as Duvall, trying to score from first on a double. Carlson missed home plate and Alfaro tagged Carlson after Carlson raced back toward home. Carlson was originally ruled safe but the call was overturned and ended the inning.

Other game notables

▪ Starting pitcher Braxton Garrett threw 4 1/3 innings, holding the Cardinals to two runs on seven hits and one walk while striking out three.

▪ Jazz Chisholm Jr. drove in both of the Marlins’ runs with a single through the left side in the third inning.