Mack's first career HR starts burst of three straight as Marlins keep slugging
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WASHINGTON -- As catcher Joe Mack approached third base at Nationals Park on Tuesday night, his face broke into a smile.
Almost a month after Mack’s Major League debut, he’d finally done it: He went yard.
But that wasn’t all. Mack’s two-run blast to right-center field in the fifth inning of the Marlins’ 7-3 win over the Nats ended Washington’s no-hitter bid and kicked off a sequence that had happened only twice prior in Marlins history: a series of back-to-back-to-back home runs.
After Mack crossed home plate to be celebrated in the dugout, it was Heriberto Hernández’s turn to go yard, sending a ball a Statcast-projected 403 feet into center field. But the fun wasn’t done there, as Otto Lopez completed the three homers in a row with a Statcast-projected 414-foot blast of his own to left field.
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The trio of homers were the Marlins’ first set of back-to-back-to-back shots since Aug. 14, 2023, when Jorge Soler, Luis Arraez and Josh Bell all went yard against the Astros. The first and only other set of three straight homers for the Marlins came on Aug. 26, 1998, when Derrek Lee, Cliff Floyd and Kevin Orie went deep against the Cardinals.
But it was Mack’s Statcast-projected 410-foot homer that set the tone for the Fish, who had homered thrice the night before after going deep just twice as a team in the week prior. Mack, Miami’s No. 4 prospect per MLB Pipeline, also became the latest rookie to secure his first career home run as part of a back-to-back-to-back home run scenario. The Twins’ Edouard Julien was the last player to do so prior to Mack, per the Elias Sports Bureau, going deep on April 13, 2023, against the Yankees.
Hernández homered again in the ninth inning, a two-run knock to give Miami some much-needed insurance. It was his third home run of the series after he blasted a go-ahead pinch-hit homer in the opener on Monday.
This three-game trip to Washington represented a prime opportunity for the Marlins to find their slug again -- an opportunity they took … and took and took.