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It likely won’t get talked about in high regard, but Brad Penny’s performance tonight deserves to be the star of the night. A pitcher that seemingly only got another chance because the manager, Mike Redmond, was his catcher in the early 2000’s.

Penny hadn’t pitched since 2012 on the big league level and that was in a reliever role. It’s not often you see a pitcher get another chance after nearly two and a half years from a big league start.

His night wasn’t terrific, but he got the job done. In the first inning he gave up a solo home run that was right over the plate. He also got saved in a one out situation with runners on 2nd and 3rd. After a gap hit by Todd Frazier, Billy Hamilton scored with ease, but Jay Bruce was gunned out at the plate by outfielder Marcell Ozuna.

In the fourth Penny had a tough time drawing outs and was running the count too high for walk situations. The fifth he had a 1, 2, 3 inning in which would be his last of the night.

Credit this Marlins team for pulling together in a catastrophic situation with their pitchers. Everyone knows about Jose Fernandez being out for the year. The Marlins also have Henderson Alvarez on the 15-day DL, and their newly acquired pitcher in Jarred Cosart missed a start with a minor oblique strain.

Added to that was the scary situation of their relief pitcher in Dan Jennings getting drilled by the baseball. He seems to be okay but is not available for use currently.

This Marlins team has been resilient through many tough instances. In June and the early part of July they were in countless scenarios of extra inning games that they couldn’t pull off. If they had won only a handful of those they’d be near the top of the NL East.

We’ll see how far this team can go in the last stretch of the season. But tonight the star of MLB goes to Brad Penny.