"A day after the Marlins bullpen blew a three-run lead and cost Josh Johnson another victory, manager Edwin Rodriguez praised his ace for the way he has been able to handle the disappointment.

"I've been very impressed with J.J,'' Rodriguez said. "Not for the obvious things, everybody knows about his ability to pitch. It's the way he approaches the game. The way he controls his emotions. He's the whole package.

"If it would have been me, I would have been throwing things all over the clubhouse. He's been very, very good about it.''

Turns out things might have gone a little differently Saturday if not for an unfortunate accident involving setup man Clay Hensley, who slipped down a flight of stairs at the team hotel before Friday's game and was unavailable to pitch because of a bruised left shoulder blade.

"Just slipped. I was wearing my dress shoes and caught the step on it, hit my back pretty hard,'' Hensley said. "The first day we were here I couldn't even put a shirt on because of the bruise on my left side.

"It sidelined me [Friday] for sure. [Saturday], I was kind of questionable. I threw a bullpen [session], but they wanted me to give it another day of rest. I had some X-rays, didn't fracture anything.''

Rodriguez acknowledged he would have called on Hensley, his regular setup man, with two outs in the eighth inning Saturday. Instead, Edward Mujica came in and allowed four consecutive hits before being pulled for Ryan Webb, who couldn't protect the Marlins' 3-2 lead at that point."