Five years ago, Jesús Aguilar delivered the kind of swing that ends a night in one heartbeat and lingers for years.
On July 7, 2021, the Marlins and reigning World Series champion Dodgers were locked in a wild one at loanDepot Park when Aguilar stepped in against Edwin Uceta and launched a walk-off three-run homer to left. The blast finished off a 9-6 Miami win and gave the Marlins their third straight victory over Los Angeles.
The game had been trading punches from the start. Garrett Cooper and Jesús Sánchez each went deep early to put Miami ahead 2-0, but the Dodgers answered hard in the third with home runs from AJ Pollock, Mookie Betts and Justin Turner to flip the game and grab a 5-2 lead.
Miami kept coming. Aguilar’s two-run double in the third trimmed the deficit to 5-4, then Jazz Chisholm tied it with an RBI groundout in the fifth. Cooper then jumped on the first pitch of the sixth for his second solo homer of the night, pushing the Marlins back in front, 6-5.
From there, Jordan Holloway and Anthony Bass held Los Angeles scoreless over 5 1/3 combined innings of relief, setting the stage for the ninth. Anthony Bender came on and struck out the side, but Zach McKinstry answered with a solo homer to tie it at 6-6.
That only set up the final act.
Sandy León opened the bottom of the ninth with a single. Chisholm laid down a sacrifice bunt, Starling Marte was intentionally walked, and Uceta struck out Magneuris Sierra to bring Aguilar to the plate with two outs. After taking a first-pitch strike, Aguilar attacked a high fastball and sent it over the left-field wall for the winner.
Cooper finished with three hits for Miami, while Aguilar and Sánchez each had two. Turner collected three hits for Los Angeles.
For Aguilar, it was the last walk-off home run of his career. He had hit two walk-off homers for Milwaukee in 2018, and this one against the Dodgers was the final one.
In Other News...
Yankees Bullpen Buzz Suddenly Centers On One High-Leverage Wild Card
The Yankees are expected to shop for bullpen help at the trade deadline, and one name from the Marlins has already surfaced as a possible fit because of the kind of arm he still represents. Miami has a reliever with the raw stuff that can intrigue contenders even when the season line looks uneven, which is exactly the sort of profile that tends to pop in late-July speculation.
For the Marlins, the question is less about whether the market will be there and more about what direction the season takes from here. If the club stays in the postseason picture, keeping that high-leverage arm makes plenty of sense, but if the standings push Miami toward a different path, the calculus changes quickly and a deadline move becomes a real possibility. [Read more 🡒]
Marlins Fans Still Havent Forgotten These Brutal Draft Mistakes
Marlins fans have had plenty of reasons over the years to remember the draft as much for what went wrong as for what went right. Miami has hit on some picks, but it has also watched a few highly regarded names fall well short of the expectations that come with being selected near the top of the board, leaving a familiar sense of what might have been whenever those classes are revisited.
Adam Kolek is one of the reminders. The pitcher never reached the majors and finished his minor league career with a 5-16 record and a 5.66 ERA, a line that speaks to how quickly a promising draft day can turn into a cautionary tale. Jeremy Hermida and Brett Carroll fit the same broader pattern for Miami, players who arrived with hope attached but never quite delivered the impact the organization wanted. [Read more 🡒]
Marlins Just Made Their Wild Card Push Feel Very Real
The Marlins keep finding ways to make their summer feel a little more serious, and Saturdays 6-5 win over Seattle at loanDepot park was another reminder that this is no longer just a nice run. Miami had to go 10 innings to finish it off, but the result pushed the club to 50-42 and kept the momentum building around a team that has spent the past few weeks making the Wild Card picture look less like a dream and more like a possibility.
Seattle came in looking every bit like a contender, but Miami handled the pressure, answered when it had to and finally broke through in extras. The Mariners had been rolling and had just snapped out of a long scoring drought, so this was the kind of game that can carry a little extra weight in July, especially for a Marlins team trying to prove it belongs in the conversation for the rest of the season. [Read more 🡒]