30-year Marliniversary: Castillo records first hit, walk-off hit in win over the Mets

A member of the franchise’s Hall of Fame, Luis Castillo was never the biggest or the strongest guy for the Florida Marlins. Castillo, however, was one of the best defensively and certainly one of the fastest.

The only player to make the opening day start for each of the Marlins’ two World Series-winning teams, Castillo recorded his first career hit on this day 30 years ago. Later in the game, he recorded his second career hit, which served as the walk-off winner in a 2-1 victory over the New York Mets.

Hitting lead-off for the Marlins at Joe Robbie Stadium on Aug. 9, 1996, Castillo used his blazing speed to give the Marlins an early lead with an infield single to lead off the fourth – his first big-league hit – against New York’s Robert Person. On a dribbler back to the pitcher, Person was forced to hurry his throw, which got away and allowed Castillo to advance to second. He’d score the first run on a Jeff Conine sacrifice fly later in the inning.

The Mets drew even on Álvaro Espinoza’s solo home run off Mark Hutton in the top of the sixth inning. After six strong innings from Hutton and seven from Person, it became a battle of the bullpens.

Jay Powell, Félix Heredia and Robb Nen combined for four scoreless frames for the Marlins, yielding just two hits. In the bottom of the 10th, the Mets turned to Doug Henry.

Alex Arias started the rally for Florida by working a nine-pitch walk. After a sacrifice bunt from Terry Pendleton, Henry struck out Joe Siddall before intentionally walking pinch hitter Joe Orsulak. That put the game in the hands of Castillo.

The speedy switch hitter fell behind 1-2 in the count, but Castillo rolled one up the middle. The grounder slipped just past the glove of a diving Rey Ordóñez, allowing Arias to score easily for the winning run.

At the top of the order, Castillo and Édgar Rentería each had two of the five hits for Florida. Bernard Gilkey finished with two hits for the Mets.

A member of the Marlins for parts of 10 seasons, Castillo is the club’s all-time leader in games, runs, hits, walks, triples and stolen bases. His first career hit and his first career walk-off hit came in the same game on this day three decades ago.