Miami Marlins Game Recap: Four home runs power Fish to second straight win

Final. 5. 3. 9. 82

Giancarlo Stanton provided a pair of mammoth home runs and J.T. Realmuto and Jeff Baker each homered to lift the Miami Marlins to a 9-5 win over the New York Mets Saturday evening at Citi Field.

Stanton’s smashes were his 14th and 15th of the year, while Realmuto’s was the second of his young career. Baker added his first home run of the season in the top of the ninth off Mets reliever Alex Torres, who served up Stanton’s second bomb of the day on the previous pitch. It was the first game this year in which the Marlins homered more than twice, and they weren’t cheapies either: Stanton’s first homer was to deep center field, and his second blast landed about 10 rows up the second deck in left.

The offensive explosion started early off New York hurler Jon Niese. After Dan Haren surrendered the game’s first run, a Lucas Duda first inning double, Miami scratched across a pair in the top of the second. Donovan Solano scored Marcell Ozuna and Realmuto on a one-out double to give the Fish a 2-1 lead, and Stanton’s third inning jack made it 3-1. The Marlins added two more on Realmuto’s two-run shot in the fourth, and it looked like Tom Koehler would coast to a win after being spotted the 5-1 advantage.

But it’s never that easy for the Marlins. Koehler completely unraveled in the bottom of the fourth, serving up a Curtis Granderson RBI single and a deep three-run double off the bat of Ruben Tejada. Ozuna got turned around in center field on Tejada’s knock, and just like that, the Mets had tied the game 5-5. Koehler then gave way to the bullpen; in fact, neither starter made it out of the fourth inning.

The Mets had to be sad to see Koehler go. Once Dan Jennings went to his ‘pen, the Mets were kept off the scoreboard the rest of the way. Six Marlins relievers combined to throw 5.2 scoreless innings in which they scattered only two hits. That’s right; the often-shaky bullpen shined on Saturday, as Vin Mazzaro, Bryan Morris, Mike Dunn, Carter Capps, Sam Dyson and A.J. Ramos all combined to shut out the Mets and cement the win.

A two-run single by Christian Yelich in the seventh and back-to-back homers by Stanton and Baker in the ninth provided some cushion for Ramos, who came in with two outs in the eighth to record the rare four-out save. Miami’s new unofficial closer struck out two and allowed a single.

Tomorrow, it’s David Phelps vs. the always entertaining Bartolo Colon in the series finale. The Mets will try to avoid the sweep while the Marlins will look for a sweep of their own after dropping all four games in last month’s series in New York.

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