Kyle Stowers hit a three-run homer, and the Miami Marlins defeated the San Francisco Giants 7-5 on Sunday, securing their first series win in over a month.
Nick Fortes had three hits and scored two runs for Miami, which won three out of their last four games.
“Everything had to go well, honestly, to beat a team like that in this environment,” Marlins manager Skip Schumaker said. “To take two out of three with the three pitchers that they ran out against us, really happy with what our group did.”
San Francisco lost four out of five games, which hurt their chances in the race for the third NL wild card spot. Miami’s previous series win was at Milwaukee in late July.
“This is probably as bad a loss as we’ve had,” Giants manager Bob Melvin said. Giants ace Logan Webb (11-9) gave up six runs and eight hits in six innings. He struck out four and did not walk any batters.
Webb was working on a shutout before he got into trouble with two outs in the fifth inning. Fortes hit an RBI single before Stowers’ third homer — a 439-foot drive to right-center that extended his hitting streak to seven games and gave the Marlins a 4-2 lead.
Both Melvin and Webb were disappointed by a bad throw from Webb to second base on a comebacker by José Devers, which prevented the Giants from getting an inning-ending double play in the fifth.
“It’s just a bad play and that leads to runs,” Webb said. “I lost that game today. That was on me today. It just sucks. We scored five runs. We scored early and I feel like I was in a good spot. I had good stuff.”
Webb had a 1.70 ERA over his last six games coming into this one.
“He’ll be the first to admit he’s got to turn that double play,” Melvin said. “He had good stuff — really good stuff. It just had all the makings of something we haven’t been able to do. And then it just turned on us.”
Stowers, who played at Stanford and had family at the game, batted leadoff for the first time. He took two changeups outside before Webb threw him another one that came into the strike zone.
“He has such good action on his sinker and such good action on his changeup that you’ve just got to get him a little elevated,” Stowers said. “Because if you play that game below the zone, it’s tough. I was just able to get him a little bit higher than pitches in prior at-bats.”
San Francisco managed a three-run rally in the bottom half, with Mark Canha’s tying RBI single being the highlight. But Miami answered with two more runs in the sixth inning.
Jonah Bride doubled home Jesús Sánchez, and Otto Lopez’s run-scoring groundout gave the Marlins a 6-5 lead.
Xzavion Curry (1-2), who made his MLB debut on Saturday night, pitched 1 2/3 scoreless innings for his first career win. Calvin Faucher handled the ninth inning for his sixth save of the season.
San Francisco’s Mike Yastrzemski, grandson of Red Sox great Carl Yastrzemski, hit a leadoff drive in the first inning for his 100th career homer. The Yastrzemskis are the fourth grandson-grandfather pair to each hit at least 100 home runs in their MLB careers.
Marlins starter Darren McCaughan, who made his first start of the season and his second career start, gave up three earned runs in four innings.
