Marlins win on Realmuto’s walk-off double

MIAMI – The best pitchers don’t leave many openings. Like with a champion fighter, you’d better slip that haymaker in there when the rare opportunity arises.

As usual, Mets imposing right-hander Noah Syndergaard offered scant vulnerability Friday. The Marlins did just enough to battle him to a draw through six innings.

That earned them a rematch with a Mets’ bullpen that held them without a run for 11 innings in Thursday’s 16-inning defeat.

It took three more before the Marlins found their way home on the stingy New York relief corps. J.T. Realmuto’s double off Josh Edgin with two outs in the ninth sent Miguel Rojas home from first for a 3-2 walk-off win.

Miami had a chance to break through on the stingy New York relief corps in the seventh with the bases loaded and one out. But Michael Conforto grabbed Christian Yelich’s liner to left and fired a strike to the plate to nab diving Miguel Rojas.

It took a replay review of 1 minute, 45 seconds to uphold the call that Rene Rivera applied the tag before Rojas got his hand on the plate, to the delight of Mets fans that made up the vocal majority among the crowd of 24,194. It didn’t appear conclusive either way, but the call stood.

A key role in the win was provided by Marlins reliever Jarlin Garcia, called up from Jacksonville earlier in the day, who made an adventuresome major league debut. The Dominican lefthander walked the first batter he faced, Jose Reyes, who then took advantage of his young countryman to go from first to third on Syndergaard’s sacrifice bunt back to the mound. Garcia had a moment of indecision, and Reyes pounced on it.

With the distraction of Reyes dancing off third, the rookie showed plenty of pluck in striking out Rene Rivera and getting Curtis Granderson on a popup in the infield

The Marlins chipped out individual runs against Syndergaard in two innings, but in both cases they had two runners on with one out and couldn’t put up a crooked number in the inning.

Trailing 2-1 in the fifth, the Marlins hit three consecutive singles off Syndergaard, with Dee Gordon’s blooper to right finding grass among three converging Mets for a run-scoring hit.

Their bid to take the lead in the sixth just missed when Curtis Granderson ran down Ichiro Suzuki’s drive to right-center a stride short of the wall after a long sprint.

The Mets gifted an unearned run to Miami in the first inning when Cabrera threw wide to second on a likely double-play grounder by J.T. Realmuto. That sent runners scampering to second and third.

Yelich got Gordon home with a sacrifice fly to deep center. But the Marlins were unable to take advantage of a chance to put up multiple runs early on Syndergaard as Marcell Ozuna and Justin Bour left Realmuto stranded at third.

Edinson Volquez, whose start was moved up a day after the Marlins had to use Adam Conley in the 16th inning Thursday (the lefty served the decisive home run in a 9-8 loss), was unable to complete five innings.