30-year Marliniversary: Veras draws first walk-off walk in Marlins history to top Astros

[Mike Ferguson]

Since their inauguration in 1993, the Florida/Miami Marlins have had walk-off wins in just about every way imaginable. Heck, the Marlins even won their first playoff game and first World Series in walk-off fashion.

On this day 30 years ago, the Florida Marlins picked up their first-ever win on a walk-off walk. Quilvio Veras drew the free pass to plate in the winning run in a 3-2 win over the Houston Astros.

After recording the final out in the eighth inning at Joe Robbie Stadium on July 16, 1996, Todd Jones was sent out to pitch the bottom of the ninth for Houston. Jones started the inning by getting Devon White to fly out. From there on, however, Jones struggled to find the strike zone.

Jones walked Greg Colbrunn on four pitches before getting Alex Arias to line out. Charles Johnson followed by drawing a six-pitch walk to put the winning run in scoring position. One pitch later, Jones hit Andre Dawson to load the bases.

With Jones struggling to throw strikes, Veras, the Florida lead-off man, was the perfect hitter to come up with the bases loaded. Veras battled by fouling off pitches before taking the seventh pitch of the plate appearance low and inside for ball four, allowing Colbrunn to trot home for the winning run.

The Marlins managed just four hits but never trailed in the contest. Veras plated the first run with an RBI single in the third to score Johnson. In the fifth, Johnson’s solo home run extended the lead to 2-0.

Houston drew even with a pair of runs in the seventh. After a Ricky Gutiérrez RBI groundout broke up the shutout, Rick Wilkins singled home the tying run.

Both starting pitchers allowed just two runs on four hits. Doug Drabek went 7 2/3 innings for the Astros. John Burkett gave the Marlins seven strong innings. Yorkis Pérez worked a scoreless ninth to earn the win. Édgar Rentería had two of the four hits for Florida; Derek Bell had two of the five knocks for the Astros.

The Marlins would beat Houston again the following night to complete the three-game series sweep. The 1996 season for Florida would be the best in franchise history to that point with 80 wins. That included seven walk-off wins. The only one that didn’t require a swing came on this day three decades ago.

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