2024 Sunburst Awards: Miami Marlins games 61 & 62

June 6, 2024June 6, 2024 Admin

“Sunburst Awards” is a series-by-series evaluation of player performance, where four different awards are given out after each series: Offensive player of the series, defensive player of the series, pitcher of the series, and highlight play of the series. This edition will be covering the 20th series of the season, where the Tampa Bay Rays took on the Miami Marlins from June 4 to June 5, a two game series at LoanDepot Park.

Who doesn’t love a good ole’ Citrus Series?!

Game 1: Rays – 9 Marlins – 5 (recap)

Game 2: Rays – 5 Marlins – 3 (recap)

Offensive Sunburst Award: Brandon Lowe

Photo by Megan Briggs/Getty Images

Lowe had a masterful two games in Miami, with four hits, four runs, six RBI, and a walk in nine plate appearances. A big chunk of those RBI came on this three run blast in game one to to tie the game in the fourth.

Lowe had multiple more RBI hits, coming through with runners on multiple times in the quick trip to Miami.

The ‘Dawg’ now has his first Offensive award of the season, with his total now going up to four Sunbursts.

Pitching Sunburst Award: Pete Fairbanks

One of the flaws of this series is the lack of opportunities for relievers and closers to win Sunbursts due to their lack of innings compared to starters. Fairbanks is a good example of this, as he has been pitching unbelievably lately, including two incredible performances against the Marlins

In game one, Fairbanks got on the mound with the bases loaded and nobody out, a situation that ends in a run nearly 70% of the time.

Back-to-back strikeouts and a weak groundout kept the Marlins scoreless and secured the game one win for the Rays.

Add another save in game two, and Fairbanks’ last 15 outings look like this: 15 innings pitched, 10 hits, five walks, two earned runs, 14 strikeouts and six saves.

In a season where there is plenty of things for fans to complain or be upset with, it’s important to take time to appreciate one of the best closers in baseball.

Defensive Sunburst Award: Ben Rortvedt

Rortvedt is perhaps another example of a player who perhaps gets overlooked when it comes to Defensive Sunbursts due to the non-flashy plays he makes.

Rortvedt rates 11th on baseballsavant.com in both catcher framing runs and strike rate. He also ranks second in his ability to frame pitches in zone 12 (balls directly above the strike zone) and zone 19 (balls below the strike zone and outside towards the LH batters box)

Highlight Sunburst Award: Innings 4&5 of game one

The Rays offense has been hard to watch at times in 2024, but for two innings we got the pleasure of watching some incredible offense and had the opportunity to relive 2023 Rays baseball for a brief moment.

So with that being said, let me get out of the way and provide highlights for those who couldn’t watch and let them reminisce.

Conclusion

The Rays got a much needed tune-up series with these two games against the Marlins before getting back to work against the Orioles with another series, this time a four game at home in the Trop. First pitch on Friday is set for 6:50.

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