The Miami Marlins beat the Washington Nationals 3-0 on Friday in their first night game of the spring.
Evening contests are rare in the spring, but traditionally begin as the schedule winds down. The Marlins will play two more games under the lights, as they prepare for the regular season. There are eight games left overall in the Grapefruit League schedule.
There was some importance in this game, even though the win itself was meaningless. The Marlins announced four of the five starters that will be in their rotation earlier on Friday. The fifth and final spot will likely go to one of the men that pitched in this game. Both pitchers did nothing to hurt their chances, and likely made the decision even tougher for manager Don Mattingly.
Jose Ureña started for the Marlins and went four shutout innings. Ureña struck out five, walked none and allowed three hits. With the right-hander out of options, Ureña is expected to make the team. If Ureña does not win a rotation job, he would likely be in a middle-relief role to begin the season.
Adam Conley needed a good appearance, and he had one. Conley began the spring with a rotation job seemingly locked up, but his name was left off Miami's pitching rotation announcement on Friday. Conley helped his case with three shutout innings in the win. While Ureña pitched better overall in this game, Conley may still have the upper-hand in retaining his rotation spot from 2016.
Miami's runs were brought home by Ichiro Suzuki, Miguel Rojas and Dustin Geiger. Suzuki has two runs batted in, while Rojas now has ten in the spring. Geiger was borrowed from minor-league camp for the game, and this was his first RBI. With Martin Prado out of action, Rojas has played plenty of third base and has accumulated a batting average of .424 thus far.
Miami will play a day game on Saturday against the St. Louis Cardinals at 1:05 p.m.
