Marlins rip through Steven Matz, take opener from Mets

NEW YORK (AP) -- Giancarlo Stanton and the Miami Marlins became the first team to make Steven Matz look inexperienced on a major league mound.

Stanton homered to cap a seven-run second inning against the touted rookie, and Miami handed Matz his first regular-season loss with a 10-3 victory over the scuffling New York Mets on Monday night.

Marcell Ozuna homered and doubled to break out of an early slump, and Adeiny Hechavarria had three RBIs from the No. 8 spot in the lineup. By the sixth inning, every Marlins starting position player had a hit and scored a run.

"Just good at-bats," manager Don Mattingly said. "We talked about it in spring, wanting to have a team approach and kind of try to keep pressure on guys. We were able to do a nice job with Matz today."

Chris Johnson reached base four times in his first start for Miami, and J.T. Realmuto had three of the team's 15 hits. Martin Prado added two singles and two walks in a game that dragged on for 3 hours, 45 minutes, before a sparse crowd at Citi Field.

Handed an 8-0 lead in the third, Jarred Cosart was pulled from his season debut one out short of qualifying for a win. The right-hander, who threw 101 pitches over 4 2/3 innings following a long layoff, didn't look happy about it, either, tossing his head back on the mound when Mattingly signaled for left-hander Chris Narveson to face Lucas Duda with two on in a five-run game.

"It's all upset at myself," Cosart said. "Obviously, I put myself in that position to get taken out there. ... I didn't execute some pitches when I needed to in that fourth inning, and that's the reason I wasn't able to get the win myself."

Narveson (1-0) struck out Duda and worked a scoreless sixth for the victory.

"It was nice to be able to go out there and kind of shut them down," Narveson said.

Pitching on nine days' rest since his final spring training start, Matz (0-1) only managed to get five outs. He walked his first two batters in the second, and Hechavarria grounded a two-run single that caromed off third base.

Dee Gordon drove in a run with an infield single, but Matz had a chance to limit the damage when he got two strikes on Christian Yelich with two outs. Yelich, however, stayed back on a breaking ball and hit a two-run single to center.

"I felt good out of the gates. The second inning got away from me really quick," Matz said. "I've been pitching since I was 8 years old, so (the layoff) is no excuse."

Stanton then sent an 84 mph changeup to left-center on Matz's 40th and final pitch of the inning for the slugger's second homer of the season.

"I don't golf, so that's the closest I can come to doing it," Stanton said. "Anything a pitcher's going to give you, you've got to capitalize and make it hurt."

It was by far the worst big league outing for Matz, the Long Island lefty who grew up a Mets fan about 50 miles from Citi Field.

He went 4-0 with a 2.27 ERA in six regular-season starts last year and then pitched pretty well in the postseason, losing only to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NL Division Series. He did not permit more than three runs in a big league game -- including the postseason.

"In the second inning, he just lost a feel for every pitch. He didn't make, really, any pitches that he needed to make," Mets manager Terry Collins said. "We know he's better -- a lot better -- than that."

New York (2-4) has dropped three in a row, all at home to division opponents.

THORN IN THEIR SIDE

Gordon got his first stolen base of the season after leading the majors with 58 last year. He is batting .450 (36 for 80) during an 18-game hitting streak against the Mets, his longest against any opponent.

TRAINER'S ROOM

Marlins: LHP Wei-Yin Chen is set to start Friday night's series opener against Atlanta, and LHP Adam Conley goes Wednesday against the Mets. Chen was hit on the left elbow by a line drive in the season opener last Tuesday vs. Detroit. He threw a bullpen session Sunday.

Mets: RHP Jacob deGrom headed home to Florida to be with his wife for the birth of their first child, but Collins said the team might not put deGrom on the paternity list. New York had already announced deGrom will miss his scheduled start Wednesday against Miami because of a sore lat muscle on his right side. He will be replaced by RHP Logan Verrett.

UP NEXT

Marlins ace Jose Fernandez faces Mets flamethrower Noah Syndergaard in a game matching two of baseball's most electric young arms. Both right-handers are 23, born less than a month apart.