MIAMI – The Marlins would be the first to tell you they have yet to play their cleanest baseball.
And yet with Wednesday afternoon’s 4-1 victory over the Cardinals at loanDepot park, Miami (12-13) captured its midweek set over St. Louis (14-10) before heading out west to face the Giants and the reigning two-time World Series champion Dodgers.
“There's a lot of very good things that we're doing, and there are certainly some things that have come up that, in order for us to go on a really good run and stack some series wins together, we just have to tighten up a little bit,” manager Clayton McCullough said.
Here are notable trends:
Starts with the starters
Miami had dropped eight of its last 11 games entering Wednesday, in large part due to its starting pitchers posting a 5.37 ERA – sixth highest in MLB during that stretch.
Right-hander Janson Junk set the tone in the series finale, cruising through five scoreless innings. In a surprising move, the Marlins pulled him after just 56 pitches (38 strikes). He allowed only one hit and didn’t permit a baserunner in scoring position.
“Guys don't particularly like that, enjoy that, but I think that's just what I thought was the best thing for our team, and [would] give us the best chance to finish out a win,” McCullough said.
The last time Junk took the mound on Friday, he threw 93 pitches. His season high was 99 pitches on April 11 in Detroit. The deepest into a game he had gone was a career-high 7 1/3 innings on April 6 against the Reds.
McCullough explained his rationale postgame: He acknowledged that Junk had more pitches to throw, but he felt that a combination of the third time through the order, Thursday’s off-day and how the available relievers could line up impacted his decision.
“Out of being a competitor, I'm frustrated, but overall, as like a team, where we were, where we are, it's like, ‘All right, I'm OK with getting a win,’” Junk said. “At the end of the day, that's the only thing that's important to me.”
Supporting bats waking up
Although Kyle Stowers got his first day off since rejoining the club on Sunday, the lineup still notched 12 hits. He has already made a noticeable impact on and off the field.
Jakob Marsee, who reached base a season-high four times on Tuesday, collected a run-scoring walk and an RBI single on Wednesday. Owen Caissie, mired in a nine-game, 4-for-33 (.121) slump with one RBI and 19 strikeouts entering the game, drove in the game’s first run with an RBI single in the second.
In a left-handed-heavy outfield, the right-handed-hitting Heriberto Hernández is starting to get back on track (40 OPS+). He produced a two-run single on Tuesday, then added two hits on Wednesday.
“I'm very happy that he's back,” Hernandez said of Stowers via interpreter Luis Dorante Jr. “He's doing beautiful things at the plate. I believe that energy is contagious among all of us. We're ready every day. It doesn't matter whether we have a lefty or righty on the mound. We're ready to give everything we've got.”
In relief
Entering Wednesday, Marlins relievers led the Majors with the lowest average against (.171) and ranked fifth in ERA (3.17). But they also walked a bunch of batters (13.6%, fifth-highest rate), which has led to inconsistent results.
After failing to record an out and walking two batters on Sunday, Andrew Nardi bounced back with 2 1/3 scoreless frames this week. He and four relievers followed Junk’s performance, combining for one run over four innings.
“Every guy knows that, too,” Nardi said. “It's been a very highly [discussed] topic in our bullpen, and everybody is trying to just dominate the zone, and I think we are doing very well. We’ll give up our first-pitch hits. It's going to happen, whatever. But I think we've been doing awesome, so we're just going to keep going and keep riding the wave.”
Cleaning up the baserunning
After recording another two outs on the bases, Miami leads MLB with 17 in ‘26. The club cannot afford to give away outs, especially when the lineup lacks pop.
“Not ideal to only play with 24, 25 outs a game,” McCullough said. “I think we recognize that, and we do need to get better, but also that we'll just kind of take each one as they come and do our best to continue, as a group, to just try to get more into the thought process, decision-making aspect of it, and not where our group becomes afraid or timid to go out there and try to make things happen.”