MIAMI — The Miami Marlins’ latest homestand included 17 shutout innings from Sandy Alcantara, a pair of walk-off wins and a 90-minute, get-it-all-out-on-the-table team meeting. They split a four-game series with one of the worst teams in the majors, swept a three-game set with one of the worst and finished it by beating the Washington Nationals, 7-4, on Thursday to spoil Stephen Strasburg’s long-awaited 2022 debut.
At the end of it, the Marlins are 5 1/2 games back of the second wild-card spot in the National League, hanging around on the fringes of the postseason picture after their best seven-game stretch since April.
It has been a stop-and-start campaign for Miami (25-30) so far. The Marlins’ 15 losses in one-run games are the most in the major leagues and their inability to regularly string together victories — they only now have three winning streaks longer than two games this year — have kept them stuck somewhere between 4-8 games below .500 for all but a few days in the last month.
It has all made the first two months of the season a mix of optimism and frustration. This week in Miami was a reason for the former.
They started by getting two wins over the weekend against the San Francisco Giants, who won 107 games last season, and finished it with three straight wins against Washington for their second sweep of the season.
Both of their sweeps have come against the Nationals — the only team behind Miami in the NL East — and this one came immediately on the heels of their hour-and-a-half airing of grievances Tuesday. A few hours after the closed-door meeting, Miami began the three-game series with a 10-run rout and followed it up with a 10-inning, walk-off win Wednesday. The capstone — another convincing win in front of 9,108 at loanDepot park — was maybe the most encouraging of the bunch.
On the mound, the Marlins got a five-inning, two-run performance from starting pitcher Trevor Rogers, who entered Thursday with a 5.80 ERA after serving as Miami’s lone representative in the 2021 MLB All-Star Game less than a year ago. At the plate, they tagged Strasburg for three runs in the first inning and then posted four more against the Wsahington starting pitcher in the fifth to knock him out of the game.
It was only Strasburg’s eighth outing since he won the World Series Most Valuable Player Award in 2019 and it lasted only 4 2/3 innings, as star second baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. scored twice off a pair of bunt singles and outfielder Jesus Sanchez, who sat out Wednesday due to back tightness, crushed a two-run home run off the right-handed pitcher in the bottom of the fifth to give Miami a 7-2 lead.
A few minutes earlier, the Marlins were up just 3-2 after Washington threatened to rally with two runs in the top of the fifth. It was the lone blemish for Rogers, who pushed up to the edge of a collapse in the frame, only to escape with the lead still intact. After giving up two hits in the first inning, Rogers set down 10 of the next 11 batters he faced before giving up another lead-off single in the fifth. Two more singles eventually let the Nationals score a pair, but Rogers induced one groundout with the bases loaded and then finished the inning by getting Nationals slugger Josh Bell to fly out to right field.
The 24-year-old left-handed pitcher finished his five innings with six hits allowed, five strikeouts and just one walk — a bounceback performance after he gave up five runs in 3 2/3 innings in his last start June 1.
It was, in all, the sort of performance Miami will need if it’s going to seriously push for a spot in the MLB postseason.
Above all else, the Marlins’ hopes are tied up in their potential three-headed monster at the top of their starting rotation. Alcantara and fellow starting pitcher Pablo Lopez have delivered. Rogers, so far, has not.
At the same, offensive outbursts like theirs Thursday are becoming less and less rare, too. Miami is now averaging 4.47 runs per game — the 11th most in the majors — and is averaging 6.89 in its last nine.
