The Miami Marlins' comeback began in the seventh inning. Trailing 6-0 at home after six and a half in the series opener with the Washington Nationals, Marlins' slugger Giancarlo Stanton took a one-out walk and one out later scored on a line drive to right field off Garrett Jones' bat that Nats' right fielder Nate McLouth dove for and missed.
6-1.
Stanton scored on the hit and Jones scored from third when Marcell Ozuna singled through short in the next at bat.
6-2.
Adeiny Hechavarria and Reed Johnson singled in back-to-back ABs against Nationals' lefty Ross Detwiler in the bottom of the eighth inning, and a groundout by Christian Yelich moved both runners into scoring position for pinch hitter Jeff Baker, whose groundout brought Hechavarria in and moved Reed to third.
6-3.
Drew Storen came on for the Nats and struck Giancarlo Stanton out to end the eighth and when the Nationals failed to score in the top of the ninth, closer Rafael Soriano came on looking to earn his 26th save of the season.
Casey McGehee walked. Garrett Jones doubled. Marcell Ozuna singled and all of a sudden it was a 6-4 game with runners on first and third and not outs. Jones scored on a sac fly to right by Jarrod Saltalamacchia.
6-5.
A wild pitch from Soriano to Adeiny Hechavarria moved Ozuna into scoring position at second and Hechavarria tripled to bring the tying run in.
6-6.
Soriano hit Donovan Solano on his final pitch of the night and put runners on the corners with one down.
Nationals' left-hander Jerry Blevins struck Christian Yelich out, but a first-pitch change to Baker ended up soaring over Bryce Harper's head in left field for a walk-off single that capped off the Marlins' comeback win.
7-6 final.
"He just has been pitching a lot lately," Nats' skipper Matt Williams told reporters after the loss.
"Tonight everything was just kind of up in the zone. They took some good swings at him and ended up tying the game. We had it set up for Jerry to come in there. We don't want to leave [Soriano] out there for too long, because we lose him for days in a row if we do. So the lead had already been tied and so we went to Jerry there. [Soriano] just didn't have it tonight."
Asked if he considered going to Tyler Clippard after Blevins retired the left-handed Yelich, Williams said the right-hander was unavailable.
"[Clippard] was unavailable today, yeah. So, set the game up for us perfectly with Soriano in the ninth, it just didn't happen for us tonight."
With Soriano obviously struggling as he was, Williams said it was a tough decision how long to stick with him as things unraveled.
"It's a sense of how many days he may be down if we continue to let him go," Williams said. "Again, we're not playing for a double play there in the ninth inning with Jerry against the lefty and we have to take our shot with Baker and he put a good swing on it, so, sometimes the best laid plans don't work and tonight it didn't, but we'll be ready to go tomorrow."
Soriano blew his fourth save of the season. Blevins, who entered the game with a .123 AVG against vs left-handed hitters and a .314 AVG against vs right-handed hitters, gave up the the walk-off hit.
Baker improved to .266/.318/.380 vs lefties on the season, with a .230/.273/.344 line against righties.
Marlins' skipper Mike Redmond said he saw things turning around before the ninth...
Redmond: "In the last 3 innings you could see that thing turning. To put together the at-bats we did in the 9th was amazing" #Marlins
— MLB Network Radio (@MLBNetworkRadio) July 29, 2014