Marlins salvage series finale after back-and-forth offensive explosion

A sweep looked inevitable. Sandy Alcantara walked off the mound at Petco Park following a cruel fourth inning, having buried the Marlins in a five-run hole with five innings to get themselves out. It turns out, all they needed was one.

A furious top of the fifth inning saw the Marlins' offense get back all five runs, including three on Otto Lopez's fourth long ball of the season. Two innings later, Gavin Sheets made sure to watch his go-ahead home run in the seventh, but Miami retaliated with three more of their own in just a half-inning's time. Ronny Henriquez and Calvin Faucher—the San Diego native and UC Irvine alum—recorded six consecutive outs to steal Wednesday's rollercoaster matinee and fly back to Miami with a .500 record on their two-city road trip.

It was a sensational day for Miami's bats, especially considering their inability to sustain offense in games one and two after strong first frames. Both Lopez and Eric Wagaman were fundamental in Miami's comeback, spraying three hits apiece and combining for four RBI. Jesús Sánchez started the aforementioned rally with a solo homer of his own. Even eight-hole Javier Sanoja came through multiple times with two doubles on the afternoon as well.

Nobody, though, was more impactful than Agustín Ramírez. The rookie sensation enjoyed his first four-hit day as a big leaguer and showed up clutch when his team needed him the most.

Ramírez started his day in the third by sending out his seventh homer, tying Dylan Crews and Jacob Wilson among MLB rookies, a fact even more impressive considering Ramirez has played 14 and 22 fewer games than those two.

As his team was chipping away two innings later, Ramírez dropped a two-out single to plate Sanoja. After recording another base hit in the seventh, the 23-year-old stepped to the plate with the bases loaded and two outs and his team down by one in the eighth. The moment was nowhere near too big.

In near-identical fashion to his second knock, Ramírez laced a Wandy Peralta sinker to center for two additional RBI and a Marlins lead with six outs remaining.

With his biggest day as a major leaguer in the books, the potential future face of franchise is now slashing .262/.318/.525. To say Ramírez has been fantastic in just over a month at the highest level would be a severe understatement.

Perhaps the only negative to come out of the exhilarating win was the current face of the franchise, Alcantara.

In what has become a despairing theme, Sandy continued to simply miss his spots—notably with his four-seam—leading to hard contact and walks. Things looked fine through three, with just one earned run in the second, before the blowup that was the fourth.

In a new and concerning twist, Alcantara was unable to create swing-and-miss. Even with an all-world arsenal like his, Alcantara failed to strike out any Padre in his four innings of work. It's only the second time in his career as a starter that he has failed to do so, the other instance having occurred in April of 2019. Sandy only generated one whiff in 71 pitches thrown.

Thanks to the extraordinary run support that he received, Alcantara snapped a personal losing streak that had spanned his previous seven starts. There were 18 combined runs scored, the third-highest total for any Marlins game this season.

Instead of making the hour and a half flight north to the Bay Area, the Marlins will host the Giants this weekend back home at loanDepot park. Kyle Harrison is set to make his sixth start of the season for San Francisco on Friday's series opener at 7:10. Miami has yet to announce a starter, however it will likely be Cal Quantrill—following his abbreviated 46 pitch-outing in Anaheim—taking the ball for Clayton McCullough's club.