COL 4, MIA 7; Marlins All-Star candidates shine bright under open roof

Miami, FL—Wednesday’s game between the Miami Marlins and the Colorado Rockies featured probably the pitching matchup of the series: Pablo López vs. Chad Kuhl. With the roof at LoanDepot park open for the second time this season, the home team did not disappoint, securing an important series win.

The Rockies offense began to stir something up as soon as the first batter with a Yonathan Daza double. After Pablo struck out Brendan Rodgers, he committed an E1 on a pickoff attempt, moving Daza to third. Charlie Blackmon’s sacrifice fly drove him in for a 1-0 Colorado lead.

In the bottom of the 3rd, Miguel Rojas singled against Kuhl and later stole a base (4th on the year). One of the hottest hitters in the month of June, Jon Berti tied the game with an RBI triple. Jazz Chisholm Jr. immediately followed with an RBI single to give the Fish a 2-1 lead.

The Marlins were not done yet in that inning. Garrett Cooper hit a massive 2-run homer to straightaway center field to extend the lead for the Marlins to 4-1. It was Cooper’s 5th home run of the year.

Kuhl grinded his way through 5 innings and used his usual pitch mix, but the control was a little bit off. His only rough patch of work was the bottom of the 3rd.

After struggling to locate in the early innings and getting himself into bad counts, Pablo settled in. It required one of the highest pitch totals of his career (107), but he completed 7 innings of work. He walked 3 batters during his first time through the Rockies lineup, then none after that. He threw 68 strikes against 39 balls.

Pablo’s pitch mix was the usual except for less use of the cutter and going to his rarely used curveball 4 times.

The Marlins added on in the 7th. After a Jon Berti walk, Jazz hit a mammoth home run to the second deck in right-center with 2 outs. It had the farthest distance of the night of any batted ball (414 ft.). Jorge Soler went deep right after Jazz.

According to Marlins Communications, it was only the fifth time in club history the Marlins have hit back-to-back home runs on back-to-back days.

Louis Head entered the game for the Marlins in the 9th to finish it out. Things did not go as planned. With men on 1st and 2nd, catcher Elias Díaz hit a 383 ft. homer to add some runs for the Rockies. Head was able to hold the score at 7-4, but his ERA shot up to 7.23.

The Marlins moved to 31-36 (4th in NL East and 7th in NL Wild Card race). Pablo López was the winning pitcher—his first winning decision since May 7—while Chad Kuhl took the loss. The Marlins won their first series since taking 2 of 3 against the Houston Astros, and they’ll have a chance to sweep the Rockies on Thursday afternoon.

Don Mattingly’s Postgame Press Conference: