On this date in Marlins History August 21, 2010, The Florida Marlins were 61-60 and welcomed the Houston Astros into Sun Life Stadium for a three game series. The Marlins took game one Friday night behind a dominant pitching performance by Anibal Sanchez shutting out the Astros 9-0. After the series opener the stage was set for game two of this three-game set in which Chris Volstad and Wandy Rodriguez took the mound. Houston got the scoring started early behind a lead-off walk to Michael Bourn, Angel Sanchez followed with a single to right and Carlos Lee provided a single to score the games first two runs.
The scoring became dormant for the next five innings until the bottom of the sixth inning. Gaby Sanchez led off the sixth inning with the Marlins fifth hit of the game off of Rodriguez a single to center. The next two Marlins hitters, Dan Uggla and Mike Stanton. grounded into a fielders choice and struck out to leave the Marlins with a runner at second with one out. Next to the plate was the after mentioned Cody Ross who reached on an error and walked earlier in the game. Finally the Marlins got on the board as Ross tripled to deep right center to score Sanchez and Uggla to tie the game at two.
The next at-bat that inning went down as one of the biggest oddities in baseball, as the Marlins hit back-to-back triples in a game. To make matters even more improbable was that the second triple was achieved by none other than Wes Helms. Helms' triple seemed luckier than Ross's as his rolled down the third base line and made it's way into the foul area in left field. At the time, this gave the Marlins a 3-2 lead heading to the seventh inning. Helms' season stats included four triples that year but this one seemed to the one that he would remember after going back to back triples for the first time in his career.
As we move to the seventh inning the Marlins followed up the sixth inning with another three run outburst that included a two run double by Sanchez and a run scoring single by Helms to provide the Marlins with a 6-2 cushion. Lefty specialist Will Ohman, Jose Veras and Clay Hensley combined to pitch two scoreless innings to keep the score at 6-2 heading to the ninth inning. Leo Nunez pitched the ninth and he ran into a little bit of a trouble against the Astros by giving up a run scoring single to Angel Sanchez. Although, with runners on first and third he struck out Hunter Pence to give the Marlins the victory. The Florida Marlins finished that year at 80-82 a seven game decrease from the 2009 team which finished at 87-75.
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