“Baseball is a game of inches.”
“The baseball will always find you.”
For Dane Myers and Jakob Marsee on Sunday, these two classic lines couldn’t have been any truer.
With the Marlins leading 1-0 with two outs in the bottom of the fourth inning, Wilyer Abreu drove a ball into the right-center gap of Fenway Park. Myers, making just his 13th start of the season in right, tracked the ball into his mitt. However, his impact with the wall jarred the ball loose and into the Marlins bullpen. What could have been an inning-ending, highlight-reel catch turned into Abreu’s 22nd home run of the season.
Fast-forward four and a half innings later to the top of the ninth, and Myers, already 0-for-3 on the day, sent a sweeper from Greg Weissert over the Red Sox bullpen to tie it at three apiece. Miami had previously inched closer when Liam Hicks punched a pinch-hit RBI single past Alex Bregman.
Marsee entered the game in the eighth, facing newly acquired Red Sox reliever Steven Matz. Already off to the hottest start that any player has ever had to their Marlins career, he had arguably his most impactful moment yet, sending a two-run home run into the right field stands.
Three outs shy of dropping their ninth game in 11 tries, Miami wouldn’t relinquish that 5-3 lead, fending off the Red Sox to avoid a sweep and snapping a three-game losing streak. Ironically enough, it ended via a fly out to none other than Dane Myers.
“It took a lot of contributions from the whole group today,” noted Clayton McCullough.
“I think I blacked out for a second…When you win, especially with a packed crowd here (at Fenway), it’s pretty special,” noted Marsee.
Through his first 62 plate appearances, Marsee is hitting .377 with a 1.242 OPS.
Before all of the late-inning heroics, the Marlins got off to a hot start, with Eric Wagaman taking Boston’s ace, Garrett Crochet, deep in the top of the third. At 453 feet, Wagaman’s blast was the longest by a Marlin thus far this season, per Statcast.
As he has done all season, Crochet would settle down to hold Miami to just the one run over his seven innings of work. Among all qualified AL pitchers, only Tarik Skubal (2.42) has a lower ERA than Crochet’s 2.43.
Fortunately for the Marlins, Janson Junk nearly matched Crochet, pitch-for-pitch, striking out six and matching a career-high with seven innings pitched. A noted control artist, Junk has allowed just nine free passes in his 82 ⅓ innings pitched.
“The velocity was back, the breaking stuff was crisp, and he was efficient,” said McCullough.
At 96.6 mph, Junk’s fastball to strike out Masataka Yoshida matched his hardest-thrown pitch of the season. Though only generating nine whiffs on the day, Junk averaged just 12.4 pitches per inning.
The tandem of Tyler Phillips and Anthony Bender followed suit with scoreless eighth and ninth innings of their own, highlighted by Bender’s fourth save of the season.
Looking Ahead
The Marlins return to Miami, where they’ll open up a nine-game homestand starting with the St. Louis Cardinals on Monday. Eury Pérez (5-3, 3.58 ERA) will start the opener for Miami. In his lone start versus St. Louis back on July 6, 2023, Pérez struck out seven over six innings of one-run ball. Matthew Liberatore (6-10, 4.08 ERA) will oppose him.
First pitch from loanDepot park is slated for 6:40 EST.