Eight hits, Eight runs — all with two outs in 9th
Jacob Stallings stayed composed in the box as he dealt with the situation of the moment.
Two outs. 2-2 count. Two runners on base. Tie game in the top of the ninth.
The Marlins catcher got hold of a Mark Melancon cutter in the lower-outside quadrant of the strike zone. The line drive dropped into right-center field, allowing Jesus Sanchez to score from second.
The rally was on.
Each of the next six Marlins batters would reach base as part of an eight-run rally as Miami defeated the Arizona Diamondbacks 11-3 on Wednesday at Chase Field to avoid a three-game series sweep and close a West Coast swing to forget on a high note after also going just 1-3 against the San Diego Padres in the first series of the trip.
But while the finale doesn’t entirely mitigate what happened on the road trip as a whole, the Marlins are hoping it serves a potential jumping off point as they prepare for a ninegame homestand against the Milwaukee Brewers (Friday through Sunday), Washington Nationals (Monday through Wednesday) and Atlanta Braves (May 20-22).
“That’s what we’re hoping for, to get this thing rolling,” Marlins manager
Don Mattingly said. “We had some good at-bats today.”
The Marlins (14-17) needed the ninth-inning fireworks after the Diamondbacks (17-15) tied the game with a Jordan Luplow two-run home run in the eighth off reliever Steven Okert.
Miami was held scoreless for six consecutive innings after taking an early 3-0 lead before breaking through in the
ninth.
The frame started with an Avisail Garcia walk, Miguel Rojas pop out and Sanchez fielder’s choice. The go-ahead run was on first base, but the Marlins only had one out to work with at that point.
Then Bryan De La Cruz lined a single to right field and Stallings deposited his second RBI base hit of the day into the outfield to give Miami a lead.
“It just felt like once I got
that hit,” Stallings said, “everybody relaxed a little bit.”
Jazz Chisholm Jr. followed with a three-run home run to left-center field to give the Marlins a four-run cushion. It was Chisholm’s first hit of the series — and one he wasn’t sure had left the park. Once the ball left his bat, Chisholm’s immediate thought was to leg out a triple or get an inside-thepark home run depending on how the ball was played.
“I didn’t look to see where it was,” said Chisholm, who leads the Marlins with six home runs, 24 RBI and 17 runs scored. “All I heard was the guys behind me screaming, and I just took off running.”
After that, it was three more singles by Garrett Cooper, Jorge Soler and Erik Gonzalez before Garcia hit a three-run home run to center field.
Garcia’s home run capped a successful road trip at the plate for the outfielder after he spent the first month of the season mired in a hitting slump. He reached base in all six games he started and posted a .304 batting average (7 for 23).
“That was big,” Garcia said. “Just have to keep working. It’s a long season. ... The guys are doing a good job of not giving up.”
Jesus Aguilar had a pinch-hit single before the inning ended with a Sanchez groundout.
The late offense — and the three runs Miami scored earlier in the game — provided enough support to back up one of Sandy Alcantara’s best outings of the season.
Alcantara threw seven inning of one-run ball, marking just the second time through seven starts this season that Alcantara pitched at least seven innings. The other came on April 20, when he threw eight shutout innings against the St. Louis Cardinals.
Alcantara allowed just five batters to safely reach base, allowing two hits and walking three. He struck out six — all swinging, all on changeups.
The only run he allowed came on an Alek Thomas solo home run in the third, when he sent a middlemiddle fastball a projected 414 feet to left-center field.
The Marlins had a threerun lead before that, with Joey Wendle hitting a tworun home run in the first and Stallings driving in Sanchez with a secondinning single.
Miami would score eight more times in the ninth to ensure this win wouldn’t elude them.
“When you see stuff like that today,” Chisholm said, “it just shows the promises of what we’ve got going into the future.”
INJURY UPDATES
Wendle left Wednesday’s game in the third inning with right hamstring tightness. Gonzalez replaced Wendle in the lineup.
Aguilar pinch-hit for Rojas in the ninth because Rojas was dealing with dehydration, Mattingly said. Rojas postgame said he was feeling better. Aguilar played third base in the ninth inning, with Gonzalez moving to shortstop for the final three outs.