Kyle Stowers made sure his mistake didn’t linger for long.
After a fielding error by the Marlins outfielder opened the door for an unearned run in the fifth inning, Stowers answered with a solo homer Friday night in Miami’s 5-2 win over the Mets at Citi Field. The payoff came while right-hander Janson Junk was in the middle of an in-game interview, talking through the inning that had just gone sideways.
“Oh, nice!”
That was Junk’s reaction when Stowers went deep, a tidy little moment that fit the way Miami’s night unfolded. Stowers later came back to the dugout, where he held up the club’s Miami nightclub-inspired bottle service sign and worked his way through a line of teammates, with Junk there to greet him.
The win pushed Miami to 56-55, put the club back over .500, and left it 1 1/2 games behind the third NL Wild Card spot. It also gave the Marlins their first victory in Queens in five tries this season.
For much of the night, the game belonged to the pitchers. Junk and Mets right-hander Kodai Senga traded zeros early, with Senga starting in place of Trade Deadline candidate Freddy Peralta. Then Miami cracked it open in the fifth.
Griffin Conine started the rally with a walk and moved to second on a wild pitch. Heriberto Hernández also drew a walk, and Jakob Marsee - who homered in Thursday’s 4-2 loss - came through with a hustle double in the same at-bat in which he showed bunt, a sequence that helped push Senga out of the game.
With the infield in against former Marlin Xzavion Curry, Joe Mack followed with a two-run single. Xavier Edwards added a bloop RBI single later in the inning to round out the four-run frame.
New York answered in the bottom half when Stowers’ error on what should have been the third out instead kept the inning alive. The next three batters reached to load the bases, but Junk limited the damage and got out of it when Bo Bichette popped out to end the inning.
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The interest in Hicks has already begun to take shape, with the Rays and Red Sox among the teams watching closely, while the Yankees are not in the mix on that front. Miamis bigger ticket remains Sandy Alcantara, but the club has made it clear he is not expected to move before the deadline, leaving the Marlins to navigate a complicated sell-or-stand-pat decision without their most obvious chip changing hands. [Read more 🡒]