MIAMI, FL—The Miami Marlins pitched well, but the Giants staff performed even better. Kyle Harrison was backed up by a deep bullpen to shut out the Marlins by a final score of 2-0. It’s the fifth time in 2025 that the Marlins have been held scoreless.
Cal Quantrill only went 3 ⅓ innings in his last start against the Los Angeles Angels. His workload was closer to normal in this outing: five innings, allowing two runs on eight hits, walking one and striking out a season-high seven. His fastball averaged 93.9 mph and topped out at 95.0 mph, marking his hardest-thrown pitch of the season.
When Quantrill struck out Willy Adames swinging to finish his outing, you saw him shout at his dugout, showing emotion, something he also did in his start against the Tampa Bay Rays. “Maybe a little bit unnecessary,” the veteran right-hander noted, but he has been “grinding this season” (career-worst 5.84 ERA), so it was nice for him to see the work behind the scenes pay off.
“He did a really good job of navigating around,” said manager Clayton McCullough. “He was able to get some some strikeouts today, especially when he needed to and really made some big pitches when it counted, when he needed to finish guys off. Gutsy effort by him.”
One thing Quantrill did to find success was get ahead in the count, posting a 62% first-pitch strike rate. “Thought we were mostly in power counts and that we protected the swing-and-miss pitch to the best of our ability until two strikes and we were able to get a couple whiffs there.”Â
Quantrill generated 11 whiffs on Friday night, including five with his splitter, which he threw 21% of the time. Even when the Giants put the ball in play against Quantrill, only five of them were hard hit (exit velocity of 95+ mph). His 87.7 mph average exit velo allowed was much better than his season average of 91.4 mph.
In the top of the first inning, Heliot Ramos hit a triple to right field and Kyle Stowers made a perfect throw to third baseman Connor Norby, which would’ve gotten Ramos by a mile, but Norby wasn’t able to make the catch. After Quantrill struck out Jung Hoo Lee, Giants RBI leader Wilmer Flores drove Ramos in, giving the Giants a 1-0 lead.
Third baseman Matt Chapman took Quantrill deep for his 10th home run of the season, extending the lead to 2-0.
Similar to Quantrill’s last start, the Marlins went with Janson Junk in long relief. In his previous appearance, Junk went five innings of work, earning the save. On Friday, he went four shutout innings, allowing three hits, no walks and striking out five.
“For Junk to come in behind Cal tonight and give us four innings as well and keeping us right in the game was huge,” McCullough said. “Gave our offense a chance to come back and at the same time preserve a number of our guys down in the bullpen. Between him and Cal tonight, to get that effort from both of them was great for us. Not only two guys who got through the game, but in the manner in which they pitched was the most important thing.”
Giants starter Kyle Harrison was great, going five innings of work, allowing one hit, three walks and striking out five. Overall, seven Giants arms limited the Marlins offense to only three hits, though Miami did work seven walks.
“Their bullpen certainly has been tough and it’s good,” said McCullough. “Harrison the first time through, maybe just gotta be a little more patient, get into the at-bat, which I felt there was a stretch where we were able to get a couple walks out of them. The second time through, he seemed to drive it up a little bit and without that many knocks, we created an opportunity there.”
The Marlins offense ended the night going 0-for-8 with runners in scoring position and leaving ten on base. They brought the potential winning run to the plate in both the seventh and eighth innings, but couldn’t get the big hit.
With the loss, the Marlins drop to 22-33 on the season and will send Edward Cabrera to the mound on Saturday. He will look to keep the momentum going from his last start against the Angels. First pitch is at 4:10 pm.