DENVER -- Call it confidence. Call it youthful abandon. Whichever way you describe it, the Marlins credit it for this historic month.
Otto Lopez and Griffin Conine went deep, while Sandy Alcantara won his career-best sixth straight start in the Marlins’ 10-7 comeback victory over the Rockies on Monday night at Coors Field.
Miami (45-40) improved to an MLB-best 19-6 in June while matching the second-most wins for a month in franchise history. The Marlins also became the third team this season to secure at least 19 wins in a month, joining the Braves (19-9 in April) and the Brewers (19-7 in May). Both of those clubs lead their respective divisions.
“We have been on a good roll, and again, it's seeing so many different contributions,” manager Clayton McCullough said. “We've certainly talked a lot about our pitching, and they have been excellent this month, but also offensively we have had a really good stretch finding different ways to put runs across the board. A lot of individuals are stepping up each night, so [I] love that we're getting contributions from a lot of different places.”
Nine Marlins collected at least one hit and five notched at least one RBI. Three relievers followed Alcantara’s 5 2/3 gritty innings to limit the Rockies to two runs at high altitude.
The Marlins struck first with two runs in the second inning. Heriberto Hernández led off with a double and Kyle Stowers was hit by a pitch. Leo Jiménez, starting for a right-handed-heavy lineup with a left-hander on the mound, drove them in with a double off the right-center-field wall. He had just one RBI through his first 93 plate appearances this season.
After Alcantara coughed up five straight earned runs -- half as many as he had allowed all month -- the Marlins rallied with four runs of their own on a pair of homers to turn a 5-2 deficit into a 6-5 lead in the fifth.
Lopez went deep to lead off the frame, giving him his MLB-leading 35th multihit game of the season. When the Rockies pulled southpaw Sean Sullivan for righty Victor Vodnik, McCullough countered with the left-handed slugger Conine for Jimenez.
Conine, who made his Major League debut at Coors Field on Aug. 26, 2024, launched a changeup off the facing of the third deck for the go-ahead three-run homer. It marked the Marlins’ third pinch-hit home run of the season.
McCullough decided to go with Conine over fellow lefty hitters Owen Caissie or Graham Pauley as the first bat off the bench with runners on base. Conine had been preparing in the cages, though he didn’t know he’d face Vodnik until right before the at-bat. Because Caissie took Vodnik deep earlier in the season for a walk-off homer on a changeup, it was a pitch Conine keyed in on.
“It's no longer like we have something to prove,” Conine said. “We still have a chip on our shoulder, but I think a lot of guys are starting to establish themselves now as just very good Major League players, and we're a good Major League team with a lot of good players.”
Added Lopez: “It's a lot about the confidence that we have trusting in each other, and it has been [like that] since last year, too. We have that connection, we built a connection. We just have fun there, with the guys that we played already together [with] in the past.”
Miami put up another four-spot in the seventh. Javier Sanoja laced a bases-clearing triple and Joe Mack drove him in with an RBI single. Sanoja finished a homer shy of the cycle.
The run support made a winner of Alcantara, who finished June with a 6-0 record and a 3.37 ERA in six starts. He became the third Marlin with six wins in a month, joining José Fernández (May 2016) and Chris Hammond (June 1993). The last Marlin to be credited with a win in six or more straight appearances was also Fernández in 2016.
This month alone, Alcantara reached 1,000 career strikeouts and was crowned the franchise’s strikeout leader. A year ago, Alcantara was often speechless trying to explain his post-elbow surgery struggles. Now, his swagger is visibly back.
“It makes you feel more happy,” Alcantara said. “The work that we've been doing together as a team, just being out there, doesn't matter what team that we need to face. Being able to compete out there, hitting side, pitching side, it doesn't matter for us. We just want to win the game and take this team to the playoffs.”