Mervis stays hot and homers for third consecutive game as Marlins rout Nationals 11-4
Matt Mervis had three home runs in 36 career major-league games before this season.
He now has gone deep each of the past three games — and against his hometown team, which he grew up cheering.
Mervis mashed another long ball in the Marlins’ 11-4 rout of the Nationals at loanDepot park Sunday afternoon, crushing reliever Jorge Lopez’s 94-mph fastball 411 feet over the center-field wall as a pinch-hitter in the seventh inning.
That three-run blast headlined a 10-run surge by the Marlins. They posted three runs in the seventh and four in the eighth.
Kyle Stowers was 3 for 5 with two RBI Sunday, and Griffin Conine had two hits and two RBI for the Marlins, who racked up 14 hits.
“Offensively, it was a really good 1 through 9 approach today against a good arm,” said Marlins’ manager Clayton McCullough. “And the ability to claw back, and then get ahead and extend the lead the way we did, really good signs here going into the off day.”
Mervis’ team-leading five home runs have all come in the past six games, and he’s slashing .444/.500/1.278 since April 5. His homer Sunday against the team that drafted him in the 39th round in 2016 was his first ever as a pinch-hitter and the Marlins’ first by a pinch-hitter since Nick Gordon’s long shot against the Pirates on March 31 last season.
“It’s baseball really, I don’t feel anything different,” Mervis said of recent hot streak. “Obviously swinging it well, but there’s no conscious change at the plate. This is just a product of the work I’ve been putting in with the hitting coaches. It’s just fun to have it pay off.”
Naturally, Mervis’ big hit came with two outs.
The Marlins’ offense has thrived in that situation all season — and did again Sunday. Including Conine’s RBI single in the second and Javier Sanoja’s RBI single in the fourth, the Marlins have now scored 30 of their runs this season with two outs.
“We don’t give up any at-bats,” Mervis said. “Half of it is attributed to the collective mentality we have. Nobody’s going to be an easy out. We’re all trying to win games, grinding through every at-bat. And the other half is guys have something to prove.”
After Sanoja’s single knotted the score, Liam Hicks gave the Marlins the lead with a sacrifice fly to center pinch-hitting in the sixth inning.
That sparked an offensive onslaught in the later innings.
“It’s huge,” Hicks said of the surge. “It just speaks to the type of team this is — just keep passing the baton. Really good at-bats that maybe won’t show up in the box score, the stats, but they’re just helping the next guy. That’s what this team’s all about.”
The Marlins’ offensive outburst helped offset an average outing by starting pitcher Cal Quantrill, who threw five innings, allowing seven hits and three runs, with five walks and two strikeouts.
“Cal gutted it out,” McCullough said. “Cal would not like the amount of walks he had today, but he got some double plays, guys made some plays behind him.”
“Yeah, it was a gusty one — I think he hit the nail on the head,” Quantrill said of his manager’s assessment. “Obviously, it wasn’t my best stuff. I was having a hard time controlling all the hard pitches.
“Unfortunately, I put myself in a lot of situations that were not advantageous. I’m never going to be that angry when the boys pull out a win for me. …All things considered, I think we managed the game well and kind of survived what was not my best day.”
Quantrill faced a bases-loaded, one-out jam in the first inning, but managed to escape unscathed.
Catcher Rob Brantly fielded Josh Bell’s dribbler, stepped on home plate and fired the ball to first, ending the threat and eliciting an emphatic fist pump from Quantrill.
The Nationals took a 1-0 lead the next inning on Jacob Young’s RBI single to left, but Quantrill again benefited from an inning-ending double play that limited the damage. The Nationals’ half of the third also ended with a double play.
In the fourth, Paul DeJong’s RBI single gave the Nationals a 2-1 lead and Alex Call’s single to left gave the Nationals a 3-1 lead. The throw home from Conine on Call’s hit beat DeJong to the plate, but Brantly couldn’t secure the one-hop throw as he turned to apply the tag.
In the bottom of the frame, Stowers slid home safely, avoiding the tag from Nationals pitcher MacKenzie Gore, who fielded Jonah Bride’s high chopper near home plate and Sanoja knotted the score after Conine struck out swinging.
Entering the game, the Marlins, in two-out situations this season, ranked fifth in MLB in batting average (.263), sixth in hits (42) and fifth in on-base percentage (.355).
▪ The Marlins will start a three-game series against the Diamondbacks at home on Tuesday. McCullough said the probable starting pitchers will be Connor Gillispie on Tuesday, Max Meyer on Wednesday, and Edward Cabrera on Thursday.