Realmuto’s towering homer sparks late Marlins rally
MIAMI The night began with a “wooo!”
J.T. Realmuto supplied the wow with a smashing home run in the seventh inning Friday that provided the first lead for the Miami Marlins on the way toa thirdconsecutive win, 7-4, against the Cincinnati Reds.
It took a while for Marlins hitters to show some fight on Wrestling Night featuring Ric Flair at Marlins Park,
Prior to the game, the Nature Boy expressed his admiration for Marlins manager Don Mattingly, lobbed a ceremonial pitch to AJ Ramos and did a duet with the Marlins closer on his trademark “Wooo!”
Then it was mostly quiet until Realmuto crushed a Wandy Peralta changeup on a high arc to left, past the auxiliary scoreboard to a region usually reserved for balls off the bat of Giancarlo Stanton.
Realmuto’s 12th homer, his high for a season, ignited a four-run inning that included Mike Aviles’ first career pinchhit homer, a two-run shot.
The homers were sandwiched around back-to-back doubles to left-center by Derek Dietrich and Tyler Moore.
The Marlins were 0-for-10 with runners in scoring position before Moore drove Dietrich home.
The previous inning, Ichiro Suzuki pulled a pinch-hit double into the corner in right for his 3,060th career hit, tying Craig Biggio for 22nd on the career list.
It sent Migual Rojas to third, and he would score the tying run with an aggressive dash home on Stanton’s bouncer to third.
Four Marlins relievers subdued the Reds over the final five innings after Vance Worley gave up three runs in the first four.
Opportunities have surfaced with Nick Wittgren (elbow strain) Friday becoming the second reliever to go on the disabled list this week, joining Kyle Barraclough.
Lefty Hunter Cervenka was impressive in his second appearance since being called up from the minors, striking out five in two hitless innings. Four of them came on sharp curveballs. He registered strikes on18 of 29 pitches.
Dustin McGowan and Drew Steckenrider each turned in a scoreless inning, the latter striking out the side in the eighth. Junichi Tazawa gave up an upper-deck homer to right by Scott Schebler in the ninth.
For the home team, it was early woes until Reds starter Romano gifted two unearned runs in the fourth. Romano, who held the Marlins to one run in six innings Sunday for a win in Cincinnati, was unable to complete the tough task of winning back-to-back starts against the same opponent.
Cruising with a 3-0 lead, Romano walked three in the inning and sailed a throw to the backstop that should have been an easy force at home on a comebacker by pinch-hitter Tomas Telis.
The other run scored on Dee Gordon’s sacrifice fly. Realmuto’s leadoff double was the only hit in the inning.