In rare start, Dane Myers comes up big as Miami Marlins beat White Sox to even series

Dane Myers has never been a household name in baseball. The six-foot, 205 pound right fielder has been fighting for playing time since making his MLB debut in 2023. Certainly backing up the Marlins’ other right fielder and one of the team’s more reliable bats in Jesus Sanchez doesn’t make the task easier.

But one weakness that Sanchez does have is hitting against left-handed pitching. Against lefties, he has posted a poor .093 batting average with a .133 on-base percentage so far this season. Moreover, with Sanchez’s hamstring injury and the Chicago White Sox starting one of the MLB’s best southpaws in Garrett Crochet, Marlins manager Skip Schumaker decided to substitute Myers in right field.

Myers, in just his 17th start this season, validated Schumaker’s decision, going 3-4 with three RBI — including a go-ahead two-run home run in the seventh inning against right-handed reliever Michael Soroka — to lead the Marlins to a 4-3 win over the White Sox and snap Miami’s five-game losing streak.

“It’s so funny because I would have pinch hit [Myers in the seventh] if Sanchez was really available,” Schumaker said.

In general, the Marlins (31-58) are one of the worst teams in MLB against left-handed pitchers, going 5-26 in games where a lefty starts. In total, the team has the second-worst slugging percentage and on-base-plus-slugging (OBP) percentage in the entire league against left-handers.

But against Crochet on Saturday, Miami’s lineup held its own, accumulating five hits, three walks and two earned runs and chasing Crochet after just five innings.

“Early on it wasn’t that great,” Schumaker said. “I mean he was throwing 97-98 miles per hour at the top of the zone. We just couldn’t catch up. I thought later in the game, we brought it down to some really good at bats and took our walks. We laid off the cutter and slider which was key to that.”

Certainly the Marlins success was in no small part to the play of Myers, whose three hits were integral to Miami’s win.

In the bottom of the third, with runners at the corners, Myers’ single helped close the White Sox’s three-run lead and put the Marlins on the board 3-1.

“His power is to center field and right-center. When he gets a pitch, he can drive it,” Schumaker said. “It’s a really interesting profile because he’s so young on the offensive side and he’s only a couple years into this thing. [He] took some really good at bats against one of the better pitchers in the game right now.”

Then, after Crochet left the game and Soroka entered, Myers’ two-run home run in the bottom of the seventh put the Marlins up 4-3.

“[I] saw just a hanging breaking ball,” Myers said. “I took one of those in the first at-bat off of Soroka so [I] saw that one and tried not to miss it.”

Myers has now had an extra-base hit in the last three games he has played in.

“[I am] right in the hot streak. It comes and goes as you know, this game is up and down,” Myers said. “So [I am] just trying to ride it while it’s good.”

Schumaker announced after the game that Myers would also start in Sunday’s series-deciding finale against the White Sox (26-65). After receiving fewer opportunities to play earlier in the year, the six-foot outfielder is excited to get more consistent playing time.

“It’s big [to have that consistency],” Myers said. “Playing a couple times a week isn’t easy, but I try to be a pro about it and stay ready.”