Jose Reyes did his best to show that he is the best SS in the NL, but it wasn’t enough to derail the Marlins who won tonight’s series opener 7-3. With some more clutch hits, the Marlins were able to scrape from a 3-2 deficit to a 6-3 lead in the 3rd inning. The 4 runs scored in that inning came with 2 outs and the main damage was done by Luis Gonzalez’s base-clearing double that bounced over the glove of a diving Carlos Beltran.

Ricky Nolasco, coming off his impressive battle with Brandon Webb, hardly had his best stuff but survived through 5 innings and picked up his 4th win of the season.

Tomorrow we will see Andrew Miller square off for the Marlins against the Mets big offseason acquisition, Johan Santana. For the Marlins, their bullpen tonight locked it down despite what was looking like a long night. They Marlins ran Doug Waechter, Reynel Pinto out to relieve Nolasco and saw the debut of Joe Nelson who was just called up from AAA Alburquerque today.

To make room for Nelson, Eulogio de la Cruz was optioned back to Alburquerque to provide a bit more pitching depth for the Marlins. De la Cruz, part of the Tigers/Marlins deal this offseason, started the 2nd game of the double header against the Giants in order to give more pitching relief. Yet, with a tired bullpen and a 10 game road trip underway, de la Cruz was optioned to bring up Nelson who had shown some ability with 6 saves in spring training.