Final Score: Marlins 7, Mets 5 — Marlins will soar, Mets will snore

Friday evening's game was a low scoring affair at Citi Field over the first six innings and after both teams slugged it out against the bullpens, the Mets fell a bit short in a loss to the Marlins. Alex Sanabia shut down the Mets in his six frames and Jeremy Hefner nearly matched him, a second inning solo home run to former hated Phillie and current hated Marlin Greg Dobbs being the only blemish on his ledger. On offense, the Mets had at least one runner on base in every inning through the sixth but couldn't manage to get one across the plate.

In the 7th inning, Terry Collins turned the game over to sidearming righty Greg Burke and the inning quickly got off to a poor start as Ruben Tejada made an error on what should've been an easy groundball for the first out. That error proved costly as after a walk to Austin Kearns, Juan Pierre came up trying to bunt but reached on a fielder's choice as Burke unsuccessfully tried to retire the lead runner at third base. With the bases loaded and nobody out, the wheels began to fall off when Placido Polanco laced a two-run single into right field. Scott Rice entered and fared similarly, ultimately allowing three more runs to cross the plate to make it 6-0.

The Mets finally got on the board in their half of the seventh, as Daniel Murphy ripped a three-run home run to left center field to halve the Marlins' lead. They had an excellent chance in the eighth to tie it up as they loaded the bases with two outs and Murphy again at the plate but the Irish Hammer didn't get it done this time, weakly grounding out to second base. LaTroy Hawkins came on and allowed an insurance run in the eighth, icing the Marlins' first victory of the year and the first of Mike Redmond's managerial career despite the Mets scratching out two runs in the ninth against Steve Cishek.

Game Thread Roll Call

Nice job by Steve Sypa; his effort in the game thread embiggens us all.