MIAMI (AP) — ting of his career.Pretty nice way to start the season.Alcantara pitched eight crisp innings Dustin McGowan Jersey , Jorge Alfaro drove in two runs and the Miami Marlins beat the Colorado Rockies 3-0 on Sunday.Alcantara allowed four hits, struck out six and walked none in his 15th major league appearance. The 23-year-old right-hander retired 14 straight hitters before Ryan McMahon reached on a two-out infield single in the seventh.Alcantara, who threw 92 pitches, wanted to stay in the game, but manager Don Mattingly decided to take him out.“I went out there inning after inning wanting to get the complete game but the manager didn’t and those are his decisions,” Alcantara told Spanish-speaking media.Mattingly said the timing of the season prompted his decision to lift the rookie from his seventh major league start.“As we get into the season, that’s a situation where he goes back out because he really didn’t have any true battles today,” Mattingly said. “We didn’t want to push him to nine out of the gate.“He was pretty much dominant the whole day.”Alcantara (1-0) also picked up his major league hit on a line-drive single to left in the fifth.The Rockies threatened in the ninth when former Miami starter Wei-Yin Chen surrendered a leadoff double to Charlie Blackmon and walked David Dahl. Chen, in the fourth year of an $80 million, five-year contract, left to a chorus of boos from the crowd of 7,559.Sergio Romo came in and retired three in a row for his first save with the Marlins, finishing a five-hitter.“If I can help out in any situation, I’m going to be ready for it,” Romo said. “You couldn’t waste Sandy’s effort. Holy cow that was impressive.”Colorado right-hander Jon Gray departed after he felt cramps in his right calf after a pitch to Alcantara with two out in the seventh. Gray (0-1) struck out 10 and was charged with three runs and five hits.“I tried to throw another pitch and felt the same thing so that’s when I called the trainer out and told him,” Gray said. “It’s frustrating for it to happen then. I don’t feel anything anymore; just going to give it some rest and work on it a little bit. I just want to make sure it stays away.”Alfaro hit a two-run single in the fourth and JT Riddle homered in the sixth. It was Riddle’s second of the season and No. 5 for the Marlins — all solo shots.“In a well-pitched game, one big hit will change dramatically the course of the game,” Rockies manager Bud Black said.Colorado star Nolan Arenado went 0 for 4, snapping his 12-game hitting streak that carried over from last season.WORTH NOTINGThe Rockies sent right-hander Rayan Gonzalez to Double-A Hartford. They currently have 38 players on their 40-man roster.WORTH NOTING IISunday’s attendance, added to the combined crowds of 14,145 Friday and Saturday, failed to surpass the opening-day total of 25,423.LEADING OFFThe Marlins used four different leadoff hitters in the series. Rosell Herrera was in the spot on Sunday, following Miguel Rojas http://www.raysfanproshop.com/authentic-evan-longoria-jersey , Curtis Granderson and Lewis Brinson in the previous three games.“Our leadoff guys will be mix and match,” Mattingly said. “We’ll see where it goes.”TRAINER’S ROOM:Rockies: 1B Daniel Murphy will see a hand specialist in Arizona on Monday for further evaluation of his fractured left index finger. Murphy got hurt in the Rockies’ 6-1 win over Miami on Friday. Murphy, who signed a two-year contract with the Rockies in the offseason, will be sidelined indefinitely.Marlins: OF Garrett Cooper was placed on the injured list because of a strained left calf. Cooper got hurt during Friday’s game and pinch-hit on Saturday. OF Peter O’Brien was recalled from Triple-A New Orleans. O’Brien started Sunday and went 0 for 3.UP NEXTRockies: RHP Chad Bettis pitches Monday against Tampa Bay.Marlins: LHP Caleb Smith will make his season debut when Miami faces the New York Mets on Monday. LHP Steven Matz starts for the Mets. If Mauer retires, does that mean the Metrodome will also vanish from my memory?I’m scared."A few weeks ago, when the Twins were feting Joe Mauer in their final game of the regular season, I was in the process of moving. Though I did soak in the replays, I was not able to bask in the moment live or comment too much on the proceedings. Too busy playing shuffleboard with boxes and hauling furniture.By this point with Mauer, the battle lines have already been drawn. Whether you love him, hate him, or are somewhere in-between, that’s probably the way it will always remain. As such, instead of trying to defend Mauer’s career to the critics or let some air out of the balloon for his ardent supporters, all I will give here is my take on what Joe Mauer means to me:One of my favorite TV shows currently airing is Better Call Saul, the somewhat-prequel to Breaking Bad. In one episode this past season, Mike Ehrmantraut (not exactly the emotional type) attends therapy with his daughter-in-law to mourn the loss of his son. In this heartbreaking scene, she confesses the fear of forgetting her late husband as Mike visibly holds back his own emotions (0:35-1:50):In large part, that is pretty close to how I feel about Joe Mauer’s career potentially having come to a close. If he doesn’t trot out to his position anymore, does that mean memories of the Metrodome Twins will begin to fade as well?As an adolescent in the late 1960s and early 70s, my father worked at Metropolitan Stadium. If you are of a certain age, he may have brought you your hot dog and soda in the concession line. My dad tells stories about those experiences all the time (a particularly engaging one involves a ketchup/mustard/relish wrapper projectile flung from the upper deck towards unsuspecting innocents below), and while I can appreciate the antics and shenanigans he saw, I can only go so far. Never once did I step foot inside that stadium, so I have to use my imagination (and maybe a few old pictures) to piece together those remembrances in my brain. It’s different for Dad Adeiny Hechavarria Jersey , though, because he lived it.When it comes to the Twins’ second home, the Metrodome, Mauer really is the last link to baseball being played atop lime-green carpet and below white Teflon. In my mind’s eye, I can clearly see him (even from those seats in the upper deck) jogging behind the plate with all the gear on, or lining a ball into left field with that sweet swing.Before the big contract, the concussions, or the ridiculous bi-lateral leg weakness debacle, the Dome was Mauer-mania. Our hometown boy, perhaps the personification of “Minnesota Nice”, was becoming the best-hitting catcher of all-time and, oh yeah, had a rifle arm behind the dish too. People were wearing fake sideburns to games, for pete’s sake.Years from now, when I tell “the next generation” (having been fully indoctrinated into Twinsbaseball via Target Field) about indoor baseball, will they only be able to relate to my stories as I do my dad’s? Through old pictures and sheer imagination?How can I ever explain to them that Dome Dogs were the greatest processed meats of all-time...Or that fans were literally sucked into and blown out of the stadium after each contest...This is to say nothing of the Hormel Row of Fame, Dodge Ball, the Blimp, Twingo with actual cards & pencils, the milk jugs, Homer Hankies, and all the winning (and losing) baseball or outright championships...When I tell these stories of yesteryear to rapt audiences of tomorrowland (who am I kidding...they’ll have Snapchat implanted in their irises by this point), they’ll probably smile and nod just to humor me, as I have to do with my father sometime because I just can’t “see it”. That’s sad.Okay Sergio Romo Jersey , it’s not really sad. They will grow up attending games at one of the best ballparks in all of baseball, watching games play out underneath blue skies on real grass. It’ll just be sad to me, because all those Dome Sweet Dome games with friends and family members will remain in my brain, unable to be fully uploaded into that of another (unless the near future goes full sci-fi).So you see, more than the stats or the controversies or the person, that is what Joe Mauer will always mean to me: the last link to Metrodome baseball. Sitting in the stands while one brother relentlessly fills out all star ballots, another never takes his eyes off Doug Mientkiewicz, and an aunt shepherds us through the whole thing.If Mauer decides to pack away the old “tools of ignorance” for good this time, I wish him the best in the next stage of his life. If he does decide to return, however, I’ll not turn him away, as it will be one more season to say “this guy used to be a star at the Metrodome”.The older I get (a ripe old 33 years by last count), the more I identify with this section of the great monologue written for James Earl Jones in Field of Dreams: “The one constant through all the years...has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers, erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time.”Even though Joe Mauer spent more time basking in sunshine than toiling before climate-controlled fans, he’s still, to me, also that young sideburns kid at the top of his game when the Dome was ending its own. I’ll always have that memory, and I guess that will have to be enough.