Marlins hammer Eovaldi with 8-run outburst
Miami rocks former teammate during franchise-record first inning
MIAMI -- The Marlins' first inning in Tuesday night's 12-2 win started harmlessly enough -- a Dee Gordon groundout to third base. Eleven batters later, the Marlins had an 8-0 lead and Yankees starter Nathan Eovaldi was gone after recording two outs in his return to Marlins Park.
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"Offensively, those guys punished the ball," Marlins manager Dan Jennings said.
Following Gordon's groundout, the Marlins strung together seven straight hits that lead to six runs.
Derek Dietrich, Christian Yelich and Giancarlo Stanton all singled. Marcell Ozuna then notched a two-run single, Justin Bour and J.T. Realmuto knocked RBI singles, and Adeiny Hechavarria recorded a two-RBI triple. But the damage wasn't done.
After pitcher David Phelps grounded out, Gordon got in on the action with a run-scoring single and Dietrich capped the eight-run frame with an RBI single.
"I wasn't going to make the first and the third out of the inning," said Gordon, who finished 3-for-5. "Ozuna started it, getting that big hit, and we kind of all just filtered in after that."
In all, the Marlins had nine of their 14 hits in the frame as they recorded their first-ever eight-run first inning in franchise history. Every starting position player notched a first-inning hit -- and Dietrich had two.
"You have to keep throwing punches in that time," said Stanton, who hit his league-leading 24th homer in the fifth inning. "It was the first inning, but us getting up twice, that's definitely ideal to help our pitcher out and help the whole outlook of the game."
The eight early runs knocked out Eovaldi, who was with the Marlins from 2012-14, after just two-thirds of an inning. Stanton said the familiarity didn't play a factor, while Jennings said the outburst was a credit to a couple of assistant coaches.
"You look at an inning like that and I tip my hat to [hitting coach] Frank Menechino and to [third-base coach] Lenny Harris," he said. "The approach that we had tonight. ... Just a great offensive effort to have the right approach and utilize basically everywhere."