The Marlins are looking for a closer to replace the human batting machine known as Jorge Julio, and tonight's 4-3 loss to Houston in the ninth probably brought them no closer to a ninth inning answer. Kevin Gregg was Monday night's victim, coming into a tie game and giving up two walks and two hits to lose the game."It was unacceptable to walk those two guys," Gregg said. "You just can't come up there and walk the first guy. That's not going to get the job done."Nope, can't blame Jorge Julio for this one. Maybe you can blame Joe Borchard, who's crash landing into Dan Uggla, who had a bead on a foul pop in the ninth with the sacks full caused Uggla to drop the ball ... leading to that very batter, Morgan Ensberg, winning the game later in the at bat. With that out, the Marlins were still in a pickle with bases loaded and one out, but with Luke Scott (.250) and Chris Burke (.211) coming up, you could lay even money that Gregg wriggles his way out of the jam.
But how about Hanley Ramirez?
Unfortunately, the Marlins' payroll mandate prevents them from hiring a bilingual sign coach.The Marlins squandered a scoring opportunity in the first when Hanley Ramirez hit the second pitch of the game off the wall in left center for a standup triple, but Ramirez ignored the stop sign by Marlins third-base coach Bo Porter and was gunned out at the plate by a considerable margin. "He ran through it," Gonzalez said, then added with a straight face, "His leg's good." He was referring of course, to Ramirez's previously injured leg.
"He can run," Gonzalez said. "We're going to have to put the stop signs in English, maybe."
