Marlins turn small advantages into MLB’s hottest month
The Miami Marlins are thin on payroll and pitching, but that hasn’t prevented them from becoming baseball’s hottest team.
After Sunday’s 2-1 win against the San Francisco Giants at loanDepot park, the Marlins are 14-4 this month, boasting the best record in Major League Baseball.
When asked if this is the best baseball he has seen the team play since taking over as manager ahead of the 2025 season, Clayton McCullough didn’t hesitate.
“If you look at how we’re producing offensively, we’re doing it in a lot of different ways. Our bat quality up and down the lineup has been good. Also our base-running. When you have so many players that are capable of getting an extra 90 feet,” McCullough said “And anybody that’s come out of our pen has just done a really phenomenal job.”
For a team operating with baseball’s leanest payroll and a pitching staff that has dealt with one blow after another, Miami’s recent surge has been less about overpowering teams than doing the little things better than them.
The Marlins entered Sunday with more stolen bases than any team in baseball, and their bullpen has the fourth-lowest ERA in MLB according to Fangraphs, just a few examples of them winning at the margins.
Ryan Gusto earned his fourth start of the season after originally being called up from Triple A Jacksonville as a bullpen arm, showing gradual progress by pitching 4 ⅓ innings while giving up three hits and one run.
After a rough start to the season, the 27-year-old pitcher has given up just three hits in two out of his past three outings.
“The focus is on trying to use my whole arsenal of pitches. That’s different from how I was pitching earlier this year for sure,” Gusto said after the game. “Being aware of the counts I’m going into and the scouting reports. Getting used to my personal queues on how to execute every pitch.
Four more pitchers, Lake Bachar, John King, Calvin Faucher and Michael Petersen, took the mound, giving up just one hit while shutting out a lineup featuring two of the league’s top hitters in Jung Hoo Lee, who entered the day with a .331 batting average, and Luis Arraez, who entered at .320.
Even on a day when 2025 National League strikeout leader Logan Webb threw his first complete game of the season, the Marlins managed to squeeze out five hits and two runs over eight innings. Kyle Stowers opened the scoring with a 426-foot homer in the second, and Otto López drove him in from first with a go-ahead double in the fourth.
Hottest team in baseball
The Marlins’ team ERA this month sits at 3.18, the lowest in MLB, while their lineup has also ranked inside the top 10 in on-base percentage, according to FanGraphs.
Now sitting at 40-38, Miami is just half a game behind the San Diego Padres for the National League’s final wild card spot.
“We’re certainly riding a good stretch right now. We’re playing at a high level, guys are stepping up,” McCullough said. That does a lot for the camaraderie, I think we’re as close and tight as we’ve been all year. We’ve just had to find a way to step up. It goes back to being incredibly unselfish.”
Even during this encouraging stretch, the Marlins still have help on the way, with injured starting pitchers Eury Pérez and Janson Junk continuing to ramp up their returns.
Pérez recently made a rehab start with Triple A Jacksonville, giving up three hits and one run over 3 ⅔ innings while striking out five. McCullough acknowledged the possibility that Pérez could return to Miami this week.
Junk might not be as far along in the process, but he recently threw a pitch-design session at the Marlins’ training complex in Jupiter and is expected to throw live batting practice this week.
This story was originally published June 21, 2026 at 6:10 PM.