Marlins walk-off Rockies in extras to snap 8-game losing streak. Takeaways from the win
The Miami Marlins’ season-long losing streak has finally come to an end.
Behind a career outing by Jesus Luzardo and a Luis Arraez walk-off single, the Marlins beat the Colorado Rockies 3-2 in 10 innings on Sunday at loanDepot park to avoid a series sweep.
The win ends Miami’s eight-game losing streak since returning to play from the All-Star Break. The Marlins improve to 54-47 on the season. The Rockies fall to 39-60.
“The good thing is we win the game,” Arraez said. “It’s been a looooooong time since we won. ... We’ve got a really good team.”
Sunday was needed to stop the bleeding. Miami went from having the second-best record in the National League and being 14 games over .500 going into the All-Star Break to falling out of playoff position entering Sunday. They remain a half-game out of the wild card after games played Sunday, with the Cincinnati Reds holding the top spot and the Arizona Diamondbacks and San Francisco Giants tied for the other two.
Here are three takeaways from the game.
How the 10th inning unfolded
Joey Wendle began the 10th as Miami’s automatic runner on second and the Rockies intentionally walked Jesus Sanchez to put runners on first and second to begin the frame against right-handed pitcher Pierce Johnson.
Dane Myers struck out swinging on three pitches for the first out of the inning before Nick Fortes walked to load the bases.
Arraez then hit sent a 1-1 pitch to right field, which was vacated with the Rockies opting for a five-man infield for his first career walk-off hit and capping a three-hit, two-RBI game.
“I saw the five infielders and that there was no right fielder,” Arraez said, “so I’m just thinking ‘if he throws one there inside, I’m going to pull it.’”
The Marlins’ other two runs came in the sixth inning.
Fortes led off with a single and moved to second on a wild pitch before Arraez hit a double to left-center field to score Fortes and tie the game at 1-1.
Jorge Soler then followed with a single to put runners on the corners with no outs. After a Bryan De La Cruz strikeout, Yuli Gurriel hit a sacrifice fly to center field to score Arraez and give Miami the 2-1 lead.
Jesus Luzardo’s gem leads the way
Miami very likely wouldn’t have been in position to win on Sunday if not for Luzardo.
The 25-year-old left-handed pitcher had arguably the best start of his MLB career — in part because of the results and in part because of how badly the Marlins needed the win.
Luzardo struck out a career-high 13 batters and held the Rockies to just one run on four hits and two walks over a career-high-tying seven innings.
The 13 strikeouts tie a Marlins franchise record for most strikeouts by a left-handed pitcher, matching Braxton Garrett’s feat on June 22 against the Pittsburgh Pirates.
“We’re just happy to get that off our backs,” Luzardo said of ending the losing streak.
Luzardo’s lone blemish Sunday was a solo home run to Brenton Doyle with two outs in the fifth inning. He ended that inning with a groundout and threw a perfect sixth inning before putting runners on the corners with two outs in the seventh to bring Doyle back to the plate.
Marlins manager Skip Schumaker then made his way to the mound but left Luzardo in to face Doyle.
“With some guys, sometimes you see the look or they’re kind of handing you the ball already and they kind of make the decision for you,” Schumaker said. “With Zeus, you could tell he was staying on the mound.”
The result? A swinging strikeout on a low changeup to strand the two runners and keep Miami’s lead intact.
“It was important for me to get out of that inning,” Luzardo said.
Overall, Luzardo threw a career-high 115 pitches to get through his seven innings. Of the 71 strikes he threw, 25 were swings and misses by Rockies hitters, including 14 whiffs on 22 swings against his slider, which resulted in six of the 13 strikeouts (four more came on his four-seam fastball and the other three on his changeup).
“We needed an outing like that,” Fortes said. “When things are going bad, you kind of need a dominant pitcher to put their foot in the ground and take the lead. He definitely did that for us today.”
Tanner Scott then pitched a scoreless eighth inning, working around a leadoff single with a double play, before the Rockies tied the game in the ninth with a Randal Grichuk solo home run against A.J. Puk.
Puk then gave up a one-out single to Nolan Jones and issued a two-out walk to Alan Trejo before giving way to Huascar Brazoban, who got Doyle to pop out to end the top half of the inning and pitched a scoreless 10th inning to set the stage for the walk-off.
Can the Marlins build on this?
As pivotal as the win was, Miami now needs to figure out how to carry the momentum.
“It’s super important after a big first half,” Luzardo said. “To start slow in the second half, it’s important to get going, but I feel like there’s no panic. We just needed to see a win in the win column and I feel like now we’ll get rolling.”
The Marlins are off on Monday before playing a short two-game series against the Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field on Tuesday and Wednesday.
After that, it’s a seven-game homestand, with three games against the Detroit Tigers and four against the Philadelphia Phillies.
This story was originally published July 23, 2023 at 4:33 PM.
.JPG)