Miami Marlins rally to wild win vs Philadelphia Phillies. Breaking down how it unfolded

Jesus Aguilar is the first to admit he didn’t take the best swing in the ninth inning Tuesday. With the bases loaded and one out in a tied game, Aguilar offered at a slider below the strike zone, getting just enough of the pitch to send a soft line drive into right-center field.

A sprinting Nick Castellanos extended his glove, but couldn’t get to it. The ball rolled to the wall.

“It was enough,” Aguilar said, “to score a couple runs.”

Those couple runs capped a three-run frame and helped the Miami Marlins cap a wild, nearly four-hour game with an 11-9 win over the Philadelphia Phillies at Citizens Bank Park.

The Marlins are now 28-32 on the season. The Phillies fall to 31-31.

Just how wild was the game?

The Marlins rallied from a four-run deficit after being up by four runs at one point themselves and then were down a run heading into the final inning before they continued a strong offensive showing against the Phillies bullpen.

Each of the Marlins’ first five hitters got on base in the ninth against the Phillies’ Corey Knebel, who threw just four strikes on 16 pitches before being pulled for Bellatti.

Miguel Rojas reached on an Alec Bohm throwing error to lead off the frame. Jacob Stallings and Jazz Chisholm Jr. drew back-to-back walks to load the bases. Garrett Cooper tied the game with an RBI single through the left side.

Jorge Soler hit a weak fly ball to left field for the first out of the inning against Bellatti before Aguilar’s double.

Aguilar, who also hit a two-run home run in the first inning, called his game-winning hit “lucky.”

The real luck came a couple pitches earlier. Aguilar fouled off the second pitch he saw from Phillies reliever Andrew Bellatti, with the ball flying behind and to the right of home plate. Phillies catcher J.T. Realmuto was in position to make a play but the ball fell out of his glove. The error gave Aguilar second life.

He took advantage.

“I almost said, ‘Thank you’ to him,” Aguilar said. “That doesn’t happen a lot.”

Added manager Don Mattingly: “That ended up being huge, obviously, getting a second chance right there.”

Tanner Scott pitched a scoreless ninth and recorded his fifth save of the season to make sure the Marlins’ final comeback attempt held. It gave the Marlins their first victory of the season after trailing through eight innings. The Marlins had been 0-26 this season when going into the ninth inning with a deficit.

Miami had trailed by one heading into the final inning when Rhys Hoskins, who had the walk-off hit on Monday to begin the series, hit a go-ahead home run off Steven Okert in the eighth inning to make the score 9-8. Hoskins finished the game with four hits and drove in six of the Phillies’ nine runs. His first home run, a three-run shot, tied the game in the fourth inning.

As for the rest of the game? Here’s the condensed version:

▪ Miami went up four runs in the first inning on two-run home runs from Aguilar and Avisail Garcia, the latter of whom sat the first two games of the series while dealing with left hand inflammation.

▪ The Marlins lost the lead when the Phillies scored four runs, capped by Hoskins’ first home run, across the third and fourth innings against Trevor Rogers (more on him in a minute).

▪ Philadelphia followed up by scoring four runs in the fifth after recording five combined hits off Dylan Floro and Richard Bleier.

▪ Miami then tied the game with a four-run seventh inning on a three-run home run from Stallings and a solo shot from Chisholm.

▪ The Phillies took the lead again when Hoskins hit his go-ahead home run off Okert, sending a middle-middle slider on a full-count a projected 353 feet to left field.

And then came the ninth-inning rally.

Trevor Rogers’ rough outing

Miami’s late offense was enough to negate the latest rough outing from Rogers, maneuvered his way through a pair of jams early in his start Tuesday before getting burned on his third attempt.

Rogers gave up four runs on five hits and a career-high six walks over just 3 2/3 innings of work. The big blow came in the fourth, when Rhys Hoskins hit a two-out, game-tying three-run home run on a 94 mph fastball that landed over the heart of the plate.

It was the latest deflating moment of 2022 for Rogers, the runner-up for the National League Rookie of the Year last season.

His ERA through 12 starts is up to 5.87 over 53 2/3 innings. That’s the fifth-highest among starting pitchers this season who have thrown at least 50 innings.

Tuesday was the third time this season that Rogers did not complete at least four innings. One of the other two also came against the Phillies, when he gave up seven earned runs in just 1 2/3 innings on April 16. Rogers has a career 7.26 ERA against the Phillies (25 earned runs allowed over 31 innings in seven starts).

Teams are feasting on his four-seam fastball, with opponents hitting .339 against the pitch this season (40 for 118) after he held opponents to a .222 batting average against in 2021 (62 for 279) on at-bats that ended with that pitch. The Hoskins home run on Tuesday was the ninth allowed by Rogers this season and eighth on a fastball after giving up just six home runs total last season.

But before the fourth-inning home run, Rogers had gotten out of a pair of bases-loaded situations while allowing just one run Tuesday.

In the first, he walked Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper before Castellanos hit a single to left field. J.T. Realmuto hit into an inning-ending double to end the threat. Rogers needed 26 pitches to get through the opening frame, yet another issue he has dealt with this season. He is averaging 21.45 pitches in the first inning this season.

After working around a two-out walk in the second, Rogers once again found himself in trouble in the third inning. A Schwarber walk, Hoskins single and Harper walk loaded the bases with no outs. Rogers, remarkably, got out of the frame allowing just one run on a Realmuto RBI fielder’s choice. Castellanos struck out before Realmuto’s at-bat and Didi Gregorious hit a fly ball to Jorge Soler in left field to end the inning.

But he couldn’t work the magic again in the fourth. After retiring the first two batters, Rogers gave up a single to Matt Vierling and walked Schwarber. He fell behind in the count 3-1 to Hoskins before giving up the home run.

Lopez out for finale

Right-handed pitcher Pablo Lopez will not make his scheduled start in the Marlins’ series finale against the Phillies on Wednesday as he continues to deal with swelling in his right wrist after being hit by a comebacker in his most recent start on Friday.

Mattingly did not announce a starting pitcher for Wednesday’s 1:05 p.m. start, but said a corresponding roster move will need to be made. That points to left-handed pitcher Daniel Castano, who joined the team in Philadelphia on the taxi squad Tuesday.

Lopez, who entered Tuesday ranked eighth in the majors and third in the National League (behind only the Padres’ Joe Musgrove and Marlins teammate Sandy Alcantara) with a 2.30 ERA, was removed in the fifth inning of the Marlins’ 7-4 win over the Houston Astros when a ball Michael Brantley hit with an exit velocity of 100.5 mph went directly back to Lopez, who fell to the ground and immediately grabbed his wrist.

Lopez threw a bullpen session on Monday that “didn’t go as well as we’d like,” Mattingly said Tuesday.

The 26-year-old Lopez has a track record of shoulder injuries. He has missed time in the second half of the 2018, 2019 and 2021 seasons — each of MLB’s three most recent full seasons (Lopez made all of his scheduled starts in the shortened 2020 season).

Mattingly didn’t rule out Lopez’s start merely getting pushed back a couple days compared to skipping a his spot this turn in the rotation entirely.

“He’s obviously getting better,” Mattingly added, “but with his history, we want to make sure he’s 100 percent before he goes back out there. That one’s up in the air.”

This story was originally published June 14, 2022 at 11:03 PM.

Jordan McPherson

Miami Herald

305-376-2129

Jordan McPherson covers the Miami Hurricanes and Florida Panthers for the Miami Herald. He attended the University of Florida and covered the Gators athletic program for five years before joining the Herald staff in December 2017.