Stanton Homers Twice; Marlins Over .500 with 8-6 Victory

The Marlins (64-63) climbed over the .500 mark on Friday night with an 8-6 win against the Padres (57-71). Paired with another Rockies loss, the Marlins are only 4.5 games back of the second wild card.

The Marlins started off the game with two very common occurrences. Dee Gordon led off the first inning with a single. Then Giancarlo Stanton stepped to the plate and hit his 48th home run of the season. As you would expect, it went a long way.

The Fish gave a two-run lead to Adam Conley before he stepped on the rubber. He fired three perfect innings without breaking a sweat. Not too shabby for the Marlins southpaw.

What’s better than a monster home run by Stanton? How about TWO monster homers by the big fellah!

#49 on the season. Well on pace to break the “untainted” home run record of 61 held by Roger Maris. More importantly, it gave the Marlins a 3-0 lead.

After Conley breezed through the Padres lineup first time through the order, things would fall apart shortly after. Manuel Margot led off the fourth inning with a single and scored on a two-run homer by Carlos Asuaje. Even some diehard Padres fans probably don’t know who that is. All of a sudden, that three run cushion was only one.

The Marlins would get their lead back to three in the bottom of the fourth thanks to, you guessed it, Giancarlo Stanton. He ripped a two run double to left field to bring home Mike Aviles and Conley. Stanton 5, Padres 2. What can’t this guy do?

Conley took care of the bottom of the Padres lineup 1-2-3 in the fifth inning, but did not have the same success in the sixth. Margot started off the inning with another single, Asuaje advanced him to third base on a double, and Jose Pirela brought home the third run of the game with a single. Wil Myers got the Padres to within one run with a sac-fly to left field and ended the night for Conley.

Into the game came Dustin McGowan (W, 8-1), looking to put out the fire. He did not get the job done. On the third pitch he threw, Jabari Blash took him deep and gave the Padres a 6-5 lead. It’s not what you want.

Conley’s final line: 5.1 IP, 6 H, 5 ER, 0 BB, 4 K (73 Pitches, 49 Strikes). Four lights out innings and two poor innings. A very frustrating outing.

After going down weakly in the bottom of the sixth, the Marlins would put together a rally of their own in the seventh inning. With the top of the order due up, they had the perfect men up for the job! Gordon led off the inning with a single because of course he did. He always seems to be in the middle of any Marlins rally. After stealing second base, Padres reliever Kirby Yates (L, 3-5) walked Stanton on five pitches (Boo!). Up to the plate stepped Marcell Ozuna. A man who has came up so big for the Marlins all year long. Did he come through once again? You bet he did!

“Big Bear” really came up big there (bad pun intended)! That three-run bomb put the Marlins ahead for good. What a great season for Ozuna. I know everyone is hitting homers, but 30 is nothing to sneeze at.

Don Mattingly then turned to Kyle Barraclough in the eighth inning. He allowed two base runners but stranded them all by striking out the side. He tends to do that a lot. Brad Ziegler got the ninth inning assignment and retired all three Padres batters in order for his ninth save on the season. Nice and easy from the backend of the pen on Friday night.

The win didn’t come easy, but a win is a win. This time of year, it doesn’t matter how you get ‘em!

Below is the Fangraphs win expectancy graph. This one was a doozy.

Fangraphs

These two teams will meet up again on Saturday at 7 PM EST. It will be Odrisamer Despaigne taking on Dinelson Lamet.