Offense comes to life as Miami Marlins split four-game series with San Diego Padres
%20(2).JPG "Miami Marlins’ Brian Anderson runs the bases with a solo home run during the fourth inning of a baseball game against the San Diego Padres, Sunday, July 25, 2021, in Miami. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)")
The series started with a pair of close losses — a one-run defeat and a game that was within reach until the final innings.
It ended with a pair of wins — one where a lucky inning and an overturned call on replay sealed a come-from-behind victory, the other a blowout on a bullpen day.
Given the state of their roster and the state of their season, the Miami Marlins will take the series split with the San Diego Padres at loanDepot park.
What does this series show about the Marlins, a team that is 43-57 after 100 games yet has a plus-one run differential?
“Not to lay down,” outfielder Lewis Brinson said. “Obviously that’s a good team everybody knows it. One of the best teams in the league. And we came into play. They got the first two but we snatched the last two and tied to series. We played these guys again so hopefully we can, you know, come with that same energy.”
And Miami’s 9-3 win on Sunday to close the series gave a reminder of this Marlins team’s potential the rare times when everything clicks.
They battled early, with a pair of home runs from Deven Marrero and Brian Anderson keeping the game tied after four innings before taking the lead with a two-run fifth inning and pulling the game out of reach by scoring five runs in the sixth.
“The first three games I felt like we’re all kind of the same game,” Marlins manager Don Mattingly said, referencing the 3-2 loss on Thursday, 5-2 loss on Friday and 3-2 win on Saturday. “Today was kind of playing like that also, like we’re gonna be in one of those 3-2, 4-3 type games and we’re able to just break out of there.”
Marrero, a Miami native and Plantation American Heritage alumnus, tied a career-high with three hits while also scoring three runs and stealing a base. Magneuris Sierra, on his 141st plate appearance of the season, drove in Marrero for the go-ahead run with an RBI double in the fifth. It was Sierra’s first RBI of the season.
Lewis Brinson hit a three-run home run in the sixth, and Starling Marte had three hits.
It’s the 11th time this season the Marlins have scored at least nine runs in a game.
On the mound, the Marlins went with a bullpen game for the finale with Trevor Rogers on the injured list with a lower back muscle spasm. Seven Marlins pitchers held the Padres to two runs on four hits with 11 strikeouts.
Anthony Bender and David Hess were the only pitchers to throw multiple innings. Bender gave up a home run to Manny Machado in the fourth and working a scoreless fifth. Hess threw a scoreless eighth and gave up a two-out solo home run to Brian O’Grady in the ninth before sealing the win. The rest of the group — John Curtiss (first), Zach Pop (second), Steven Okert (third), Anthony Bass (sixth) and Richard Bleier (seventh) — threw one inning apiece.
The Padres opened scoring in the single with an Eric Hosmer RBI single that scored Tommy Pham from third. Pham reached on a Jesus Aguilar missed catch error.
“They were solid,” Mattingly said. “We had a couple of ways to go. We could have went with Hess early and take our chances there and started to work back, but we decided to go the other direction just try to keep it in check as long as we could. Hopefully we could put some runs up and be able to kind of piece it together that way and match up with them a little bit. They’re a tough club to match up with. They mix and match you pretty good, but our guys did a nice job of not having that beginning. We gave up a couple of ones but after that we were really able to keep them in check. “
This story was originally published July 25, 2021 at 4:17 PM.
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