Marlins allow 20 runs for seventh time in franchise history

While most of the attention from the fanbase and media alike remained on the departure of Luis Arraez (who went 4-6 with an RBI in his Padres debut) and the future of the team, the officially Arraez-less Miami Marlins took on the Oakland Athletics on Saturday in game two of their three- game set from the Oakland Coliseum.

What ensued over the next three hours was historical, in the sense that Miami allowed 20+ runs for just the seventh time in franchise history and the first time since the infamous 29-9 waxing at the hands of the Braves on September 9, 2020. Oakland put up a staggering 21 hits, six home runs, and featured seven players with multi-hit games and two with multi-homer games.

The original scheduled start time for Saturday's contest was 4:07 EST, but due to storms in the Oakland area, the game was delayed over three hours and first pitch was not thrown until 7:30.

Although rain delays are often associated with slow offensive starts to games, the A's wasted no time getting on the board in the bottom of the second. Unfortunately for Marlins starter Trevor Rogers, Oakland would get their first runs of the contest off of shaky defense behind him, a common theme in his recent starts. Jazz Chisholm Jr. came up just short on a Shea Langeliers fly ball that resulted in a triple. After a Darell Hernaiz RBI single and JJ Bleday walk, Miami's defense failed to back up Rogers once again, as Vidal Bruján made his fifth error of the season, loading the bases and getting Rogers in a high-leverage situation early in the game. Rogers would limit the damage and allow just two runs in the second. That, unfortunately, was the high of Rogers' seventh start of the season.

After Miami went 1-2-3 in the top of the third, Oakland's offense started right where they left off in the bottom of the frame. Brent Rooker hit a towering two-run blast just nine pitches into the inning. Four batters later, Bleday, who was drafted fourth overall by the Marlins in 2019 and shipped to Oakland for A.J. Puk in February 2023, got his former team back with a three-run homer of his own to break the game open.

After Rogers walked his next batter, Brett Harris (who we will get to soon), Skip Schumaker saw enough as he pulled the lefty from his start just 2 ⅓ innings in.

Darren McCaughan took over for Rogers, and the aforementioned Rooker welcomed the 28-year-old with his second two-run homer of the inning. When it was all said and done, the A's put up ten runs in the bottom of the third. Miami went scoreless again in the top of the fourth, marking the first time in franchise history the Marlins allowed 13 runs without scoring one of their own through four innings.

Oakland scored eight more runs through the final five innings of the contest. Notably amongst A's hitters, Bleday continued his dominant night adding two more hits and another RBI. It was arguably his best offensive performance of his young career, go figure.

Langeliers had a HR of his own as he took Emmanuel Rivera deep to help the A's reach 20.

The best story of the night, though, was new big leaguer Brett Harris. Harris had the first two hits of his career, both being home runs. Harris, who is the A's #9 prospect per MLB Pipeline and debuted in Friday's series opener, had a great presence of family and friends in attendance.

As for Miami, offensively, two of their seven hits were home runs, courtesy of Bryan De La Cruz and Nick Fortes, who hit his first long ball of 2024.

The Marlins look to avoid the sweep on Sunday with Sixto Sánchez toeing the rubber at 4:07. Joe Boyle takes the ball for Mark Kotsay's A's.