Marlins fight to no avail, lose sixth straight in twelfth inning

MIAMI,FL- After a tough road trip in which the Marlins took the first game and dropped the final five, Miami returned home to loanDepot park with hopes of getting back on track against the 35-35 St. Louis Cardinals, the same team they defeated for win number one of 2024 back in April.

The Marlins trailed for the majority of the night, and after Calvin Faucher allowed three runs to come across in the top of the eighth, it was looking unlikely that a win would come on Monday. That is, until, Bryan De La Cruz crushed a three-run, opposite field homer to tie the game at four just a few minutes later. Both teams exchanged jabs until the twelfth inning, when Masyn Winn delivered the knock-out punch with a game-winning two-run homer off A.J. Puk.

Although the Fish continued to fight and made things interesting with a Nick Gordon triple in the bottom of the frame, a questionable tag-up from Gordon and subsequent laser throw from Cardinals right fielder Dylan Carlson took away any chance they had of keeping the contest going. The Marlins lost, 7-6.

"I'm super proud of the fight." Marlins manager Skip Schumaker said postgame. "Unfortunately, we didn't win, but I'll take that effort all day long."

As mentioned, the Marlins appeared to be dead in the water in the eighth after the Cardinals rallied for three runs, all coming with two outs. After Kent Emanuel limited the damage to just three, Miami came up to bat prepared to face the back of St. Louis' deep bullpen. Down to two outs with two runners on, Bryan De La Cruz sent a rocket to right-center field to tie the score, electrifying the crowd of 9,468. Schumaker noted that De La Cruz saw the ball well all night, and for the Dominican outfielder to hit a "backside" home run shows that "he's going to start getting hot again".

After a scoreless ninth and tenth inning, the Cardinals broke the tie with a Dylan Carlson sac fly in the eleventh. Miami struck back fast on a Jesus Sanchez RBI groundout in the bottom half. 

In the twelfth, eerily similar to his go-ahead home run that he allowed to Cardinal Jordan Walker around this time last year, Marlins reliever A.J. Puk got beat again in crunch time, this time by young star Masyn Winn, who drove a home run to left.

"I've said it before, the preparation, everything is there. Metrically, all this stuff looks there. Unfortunately, just the execution at those times is not," Schumaker said of Puk postgame, adding that Puk is, "frustrated you know, you can feel like you can see it because he knows that he's in those spots to get big outs and he knows he's been in those spots before to get big outs...I believe he can still do that".

Winn's homer didn't deter Miami's fight, though, as Nick Gordon began the home-half of the inning with an RBI ground-rule double that was rightfully-overturned into a triple down the right-field line, bringing Miami back to within just one run.

However, to the dismay of Marlins players and fans, they were back out of the game as fast as they were back in it. Standing at third as the tying-run with zero outs, Gordon tagged-up on a Tim Anderson line out to right. Carlson, who has 40th percentile arm strength (according to Baseball Savant), made a fantastic throw on a line to nab Gordon at home, quite easily.

Schumaker defended his base-runner postgame, saying "I trust my coaches and trust Gordon, he's got a good speed. I know," and noted that it would "[take] a perfect throw to get him out" at the plate. Gordon added that Carlson had "to make a perfect throw. He's got to be good. And at the end of the day, we are professionals...we're in a little bit of a rut so we're trying to get something going and just kind of really trying to make plays."

Otto Lopez would ground out just one batter later, extending Miami's losing streak to six games.

If not for De La Cruz's heroics, the story of the game would be on Redbirds starter Sonny Gray. The 11-year veteran came into Monday night's game dominating the Marlins in his career, possessing a 3-0 record in five starts. Gray one-upped those five good performances with a stellar one on Monday, going 7.2 innings at an extremely efficient pace, averaging almost 11 pitches per inning.

After five innings of dominance, the Marlins finally got to Gray in the sixth. Tim Anderson, who has been one of the hottest hitters in all of MLB over the past week with a .417 batting average since coming off the bereavement list, started things for Miami. He notched his second hit of the night with a single through the infield, the same spot where he recorded hit number one. After Otto Lopez and Nick Fortes moved him over, Jazz Chisholm Jr. drove a triple down the first base line to tie the game at one. 

Braxton Garrett started this game for Miami, coming off two starts where he did not look like the guy most are used to seeing. The 26-year-old possessed an 11.00 ERA in his two starts last week. 

Monday ended up being just what the doctor ordered, which was a great bounce-back for Garrett. The fifth-year lefty wasn't perfect, but threw six innings of one-run ball, the only blemish being a solo home run in the fifth.

When asked about what worked on Monday night, Garrett credited, "mixing my two fastballs. Finally. I felt like, I don't know what the numbers were, but felt like 50/50 sinker, four-seam. My slider was the best it's been all year. I think that was the main thing."

Miami looks to even this series on Tuesday night at 6:10pm. Veteran Lance Lynn takes the mound for the Cardinals while Roddery Muñoz, coming off the best start of his young career, toes the slab for the Marlins.