10-year Marliniversary: Fish rally from 7 down to stun D’Backs, tie biggest comeback in franchise history

Baseball fans are anxiously awaiting the 2019 Major League Baseball All-Star Game, but on this day 10 years ago, fans of the Florida Marlins witnessed a late-night comeback for the ages.

The Marlins were in the middle of a West Coast road trip as they visited the Arizona Diamondbacks on July 9, 2009. The contest began a four-game series and ended with Florida scoring the game’s final 14 runs in a 14-7 victory, tying the franchise record for the biggest comeback in team history. For Arizona, the meltdown served as the largest blown lead in its history.

Arizona seemingly had an easy win in hand, leading 7-0 after five innings.

That’s when the Marlins began chipping away. They showed life in the sixth inning with three runs on a pair of homers. After a two-run shot from Jorge Cantu broke up the shutout, Jeremy Hermida hit a solo homer to make it 7-3.

In the seventh, an RBI double from Chris Coghlan cut the deficit to three. Florida would load the bases and bring the go-ahead run to the plate with one out, but Esmerling Vasquez was able to get Marlins outfielder Cody Ross to ground into an inning-ending double play.

It looked like a huge missed opportunity, but the Marlins were just getting started. The top of the eighth saw Florida respond with a then-franchise record 10-run inning.

Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images

With the bases loaded and no one out, pinch hitter Ross Gload grounded into a fielder’s choice to cut the lead to 7-5. The next pinch hitter, Brett Carroll, blasted a 3-1 pitch from Scott Schoeneweis over the left field wall to put Florida ahead 8-7 in thrilling fashion. Few would have guessed that six more runs would cross home before the Diamondbacks could record two more outs.

The Marlins padded their lead on RBI singles from Dan Uggla, Hermida and Ross before Arizona could record another out. Ross would score on an RBI double from John Baker. Hanley Ramirez scored Florida’s 13th run of the game on a passed ball before Gload capped the scoring with his second RBI groundout of the inning to score Ross.

When all was said and done, the Marlins had doubled up on the Diamondbacks on 17 hits. Uggla recorded four hits while Hermida added three to go with three runs scored. In total, 11 Marlins tallied a hit and seven of those hits went for extra bases.

Earning the victory for the Marlins was Kiko Calero, who worked a scoreless seventh inning. Schoeneweis took the loss for Arizona. In the loss, Justin Upton went 3-for-5 with a two-run home run for the Diamondbacks while Chris Young drove in three runs with two coming on a third-inning triple.

With the victory, the Marlins improved to 45-42 on the season. Arizona would win the next two games by a combined 13-1 margin before Florida took the series finale, 8-1, in the last game before the All-Star break.

The thrilling victory for the Marlins tied a June 2003 win over the Boston Red Sox—in which Florida erased a 9-2 deficit in a 10-9 win at Fenway Park—for the largest comeback in franchise history. It happened on this day 10 years ago.