Weathers continues his strong month of May with six shutout innings

Led by excellent pitching and Jake Burger's bat, the Miami Marlins clinched their fourth straight series win on Sunday, defeating the Arizona Diamondbacks by a final score of 3-1.

"It always starts with pitching," said Marlins manager Skip Schumaker following the game.

In the month of May, starting pitcher Ryan Weathers has completed six innings or more in all of his outings. He continued that streak in Arizona with six innings of shutout baseball, allowing four hits and one walk. He also struck out seven, which is the second-most for him this month.

"Five walks all of May," noted Schumaker, "which just shows you his growth and the confidence he has in our pitching coach, but to watch his secondary pitches work so well in any count; we knew he had his fastball—he throws 97, we knew that—but all the work that he's put in to be able to spin it and to command his changeup at any given moment, it all starts there."

Weathers heavily attacked the strike zone (65.9% of his pitches were strikes), primarily going with his four-seam/changeup combo. Although the sweeper was Weathers' least-used pitch, he generated four out of 12 whiffs and five of his seven strikeouts with it.

The Diamondbacks have been a very good offensive team against left-handed pitching, slashing .281/.334/.443/.777 with 18 home runs and 83 RBIs. They couldn't get anything going against Weathers and a big reason for that was his ability to limit hard contact and generate ground balls. Weathers' groundball percentage was 66.7% in this start, raising his season average to 50.8% (the MLB average is 42.6%).

Rookie lefty Blake Walston was very effective as well (4.2 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 4 K) and the game remained scoreless until the top of the seventh inning. With runners on first and second, Bryan De La Cruz looked like he may have grounded into an inning-ending double play, but a throwing error on Diamondbacks shortstop Kevin Newman allowed Nick Fortes to score from second and give Miami a 1-0 lead.

After struggling since his return from the IL, Jake Burger capped off his strong series against the Diamondbacks by driving in two insurance runs to extend the lead to 3-0. Burger ended the series with six hits, including a home run in the first game of the series.

Burger jokingly mentioned that his trip to a local water park during Thursday off-day was the key to his recent hot streak.

"All ripping tubes," said Burger. "That had a big impact on it, but I think (hitting coach John) Mabry and I got some stuff figured out in the cage and I probably give that 90% and ripping tubes the other 10%...I think just calming everything down in the box. Skip and I had a really good conversation a couple of days ago: 'let's just get back to having fun,' and I do think ripping tubes was a part of that, but I think it's just getting in there and knowing who I am as a hitter and it's me versus that guy. It's no other thought. Just get in there and compete."

With the win, the Marlins improve to 19-35, having taken two out of three from the Detroit Tigers, New York Mets, Milwaukee Brewers and now the D-backs. This marks the first time since April 2023 that the Marlins have won four straight series.

Next, the Fish will travel to San Diego for a three-game set which begins on Monday at 6:40 pm. They'll be reunited with star infielder Luis Arraez less than one month after trading him to the Padres. Since the Arraez trade, the Marlins have a .500 winning percentage, so they will put that to the test against one of the hottest hitters in baseball, who has a .391/.418/.471/.889 slash line with his new squad.