MIAMI—It’s Wednesday, May 15, 2024. Jazz Chisholm Jr., Bryan De La Cruz and Josh Bell headlined the Marlins’ lineup in a 2-0 series-clinching victory in Detroit behind a solid start from Trevor Rogers. Around baseball, Aaron Judge launched a 467-foot home run and ripped three additional doubles against Minnesota while Adley Rutschman walked off the Blue Jays with a two-run blast of his own. Oh, and out at Petco Park, Colorado picked up a surprising sweep of the Padres.

Unbeknownst to the young Rockies at the time, they wouldn’t experience that sensation again for a long, long time.

After ending that season 40 games under .500, Colorado entered their 20th series of 2025 as the laughingstock of not just MLB, but all of sports. The other 1993 expansion team came into Miami with a near-impossible 9-50 record.

For a Marlins team that just played fellow NL West division opponents in the Padres and Giants fairly competitively, the weekday three-gamer was the most “get right” series they would see all season. Perhaps the Fish would even record their first sweep of their 2025 campaign, just as they did a season ago against these same Rockies.

Instead, following Wednesday’s 3-2 matinee, it was Colorado who broke out the brooms for the first time since that mid-May evening in 2024, now 385 days ago.

Continuing a theme that began following the second inning on Monday, the Marlins were unable to sustain any offensive success. Rockies starter Kyle Freeland, who has been one of MLB’s unluckiest arms thus far—a 3.67 FIP compared to a 5.72 ERA—carved up Miami’s bats all afternoon long. The southpaw was superb through six innings, holding the Marlins to two hits on a minuscule 78 pitches.

It wasn’t until the seventh when he ran into trouble, and even then, it was due to Orlando Arcia’s error at short that kickstarted Miami’s rally. Following Arcia’s mishap, back-to-back hits from Eric Wagaman and Heriberto Hernández put Miami right back in it. The rally even looked like it would end with a tie game, but a perfect relay from the Rockies defense and subsequent tag on Jesús Sánchez from, you guessed it, Jacob Stallings, spoiled Liam Hicks’ double. The slight spark of offense ended up being the closest Miami got all day, as they went down in order in both the eighth and ninth.

On the contrary, things would’ve looked considerably more bleak if not for Freeland’s teammate a year ago, Marlins starter Cal Quantrill.

Quantrill endured a rough opening frame, allowing extra-base hits to both Thairo Estrada and Hunter Goodman—who accumulated five RBI in the series—but settled down and persevered through five innings. The veteran right-hander continued his recent run of allowing two earned runs or less in each of his past four starts (the second run crossed in the fifth).

A well-mixed arsenal was the solution for Quantrill, as the 30-year-old threw five different pitches on at least ten occasions, plus seven cutters. Quantrill found most success with his patented splitter, as the breaking pitch recorded four of his nine whiffs and was responsible for one of just two strikeouts.

“I think I threw alright. First couple innings were a grind, I settled in after that,” Quantrill told reporters postgame. “(Nick) Fortes and I got on a little better rhythm as we went. I’ve thrown the ball well the last five, six, seven times out…I think I didn’t have my best stuff today. I thought we grinded well—something you can rest your head on a little bit easier tonight”.

After a bumpy start to his Marlins career, Quantrill owns a 3.25 ERA since the start of May. For a rotation that’s reintroducing Eury Pérez in the next week, Miami’s free agent signing getting back on track will prove key moving forward.

As we’ve come to expect, Janson Junk came on in bulk relief for the final four innings. Junk was solid yet again, striking out six while allowing just a lone run to cross.

“I’m still learning. I’m still trying to figure out that routine and stuff. But it’s an everyday process. So, even though I’m long relief and I’m going out there, preparing like I’m part of the whole plan. Even though I probably won’t throw the day after, I’m going out there just to mentally lock in,” Junk told Fish On First about his new role last week.

With the sweep in the books, Miami falls to 14 games under .500. Manager Clayton McCullough said it’s a “frustrating” loss, but that the team will need to rebound before things snowball.

“The whole week here it’s just frustrating that we did a lot of things well, but certainly not enough to come up on the winning end. We’ll just regroup from this and just go. We have to go on, right? This league is unrelenting, and we’ll get back at it after the off day tomorrow in Tampa, and get back to winning some ball games.”

The main thing that the Marlins did not do well on the just-completed homestand was hit for power. No Miami player homered over the course of those six games. It was their first homerless homestand of multiple series since July 11-21, 2022.

Neither team has officially announced a starter for Friday’s series opener, although it is expected that McCullough will roll with Edward Cabrera, coming off debatably the best month of his career. Cabrera boasted a flat 2.00 ERA in May, by virtue of refined command and feel for his pitch mix. Following his previous start—a scoreless 5 ⅓ inning effort a Saturday ago—the 27-year-old noted that his past stretch has been the most comfortable he’s felt at the highest level. First pitch from the Rays’ temporary home at George M. Steinbrenner Field is set for an unconventional 1:10.