Jonah Bride reached base three times and knocked in two runs, while Otto Lopez had two hits and an RBI against his former team, helping the Miami Marlins complete a three-game sweep of the Toronto Blue Jays with a 3-1 win in the regular-season finale on Sunday.
“It’s a good moment, especially to end the season this way,” said bench coach Luis Urueta.
Ryan Weathers (5-6) pitched 6 1/3 innings, allowing one run and three hits, winning his second consecutive start. He walked two batters and struck out six.
Weathers managed to get out of a tough situation in the first inning with the bases loaded and no outs, then retired 16 batters in a row from the second to the seventh innings.
“It felt good,” Weathers said. “Any time you can do well against a quality lineup is good.” Anthony Bender secured the last four outs for his first save in five attempts, marking Miami’s second series sweep this season.
Toronto lost eight of their last nine games, finishing September with a record of 7-17. The Blue Jays ended the season at 39-42 at home.
Manager John Schneider placed star hitter Vladimir Guerrero Jr. in the leadoff spot, hoping to help him become the sixth player in Blue Jays history to reach 200 hits.
Guerrero went 0 for 2 with a strikeout and walked twice, finishing with 199 hits.
Fans booed when Miami’s Lake Bachar missed a 3-2 fastball in Guerrero’s last at-bat in the eighth, but gave him a standing ovation when he was replaced by pinch runner Nathan Lukes.
No Blue Jays player has achieved a 200-hit season since Vernon Wells had 215 hits in 2003.
Despite the milestone chase, Guerrero said he wasn’t tempted to swing at Bachar’s full-count pitch. “It was easy for me,” Guerrero said through a translator. “I’m not just going to strike out trying to get a hit knowing that I can get a walk.”
Toronto was swept for the fifth time this season and ended with a record of 74-88, the worst since 2019 when they went 67-95.
“We’ve got to get better at everything,” Guerrero said. Last season, the Blue Jays finished 89-73, earning the third AL wild card spot.
The Marlins also had a significant drop from their 2023 record of 84-78, which got them into the NL wild card. Despite winning five of their last six games, Miami ended with a record of 62-100.
“It’s a young group of players and they have a bright future,” Urueta said. “They’ve just got to keep working.”
The Blue Jays attracted a crowd of 31,688, bringing their total attendance for the year to 2,681,236, which is down from 3,021,904 in 2023.
Urueta, who was managing his second game while Skip Schumaker was away, placed Jake Burger at the top of the lineup. Burger had 29 home runs coming into the game. He got a single and scored in the first inning but did not reach base again.
Bride hit a two-run single off Blue Jays opener Ryan Burr (0-2) in the first inning. In the sixth, Bride walked against Dillon Tate, advanced on a single, and scored when Lopez doubled.
Bride had a batting average of .326 with six home runs and 17 RBIs in 26 games in September. “I think he’s got a future here,” Urueta said.
Schumaker missed his second game due to a medical issue in his family.
