NEW YORK – “Oh, nice!”
While Marlins right-hander Janson Junk discussed his outing during an in-game interview, including a treacherous fifth inning in which Kyle Stowers’ fielding error led to an unearned run, Stowers atoned for his miscue with a solo homer.
When Stowers returned to the dugout, where he held up the club’s Miami nightclub-inspired bottle service sign and made his way through a row of teammates, Junk was there to greet him in Friday night’s 5-2 victory over the Mets at Citi Field.
Miami (56-55) moved over .500 again and pulled within 1 1/2 games of the third NL Wild Card spot with its first win in Queens in five tries this season.
“I didn’t even hear it off the bat,” Junk admitted postgame. “I just heard people cheering, and then seeing Stowey run the bases, that was really cool.”
Early on, it was a pitchers’ duel between Junk and right-hander Kodai Senga, who started in place of Trade Deadline candidate Freddy Peralta. The Marlins broke the scoreless deadlock with four runs in the fifth and chased Senga in the process.
Griffin Conine led off the inning with a walk and advanced to second on a wild pitch. Heriberto Hernández walked before Jakob Marsee, who went deep in Thursday’s 4-2 loss, drove in a run with a hustle double in the same at-bat he also showed bunt to knock Senga out of the game.
With the infield drawn in against former Marlin Xzavion Curry, Joe Mack produced a two-run single and Xavier Edwards later tacked on a bloop RBI single.
New York got one run back in the bottom half of the frame after first baseman Stowers committed a fielding error on what should’ve been the third out. Instead, the next three batters reached to load the bases. Junk, however, escaped further damage on Bo Bichette’s popout to end his outing.
“I don’t know why he was so apologetic for it,” Junk said. “He’s been playing great over there, and he’s saved me multiple times. It’s baseball. Stuff happens. In that moment, I thought it was going to be three outs right there, let down my guard a little bit, and then things got a little messy.
“But I had to lock back in and just keep executing my pitches to the best of my ability, and I think that’s what we did, just to come out of there just with one run is great for the ballclub.”
The 28-year-old Stowers, who was a Gold Glove finalist in left field last season, is still relatively new to first base. Friday marked his 37th game (35th start) there in his career – all of which have come this year – and he entered with -2 defensive runs saved and -3 outs above average at the position.
There is certainly room for improvement, but the Marlins have seen enough to believe Stowers could be the solution at the position beyond 2026. It could also do wonders for his health and longevity.
Stowers didn’t wait long to make up for the error, crushing Curry’s hanging curveball over the right-center wall with one out in the sixth. Stowers has gone deep four times in his past six games to tie him with Hernández for the team lead with 16 homers this season.
“It was just locking in even extra into my plan and approach,” said Stowers, who also doubled in the eighth. “You can’t always make things happen, but that was just kind of maybe a little extra focus in putting together a good at-bat, and obviously glad I was able to get the run back in some capacity. Still bummed that I made him throw a bunch of extra pitches, and who knows, if he would have gone out for the next inning, maybe we don’t use an extra bullpen arm? It happened. Good learning experience for me to work through those types of moments.”
Entering Friday, Stowers ranked in the 98th percentile with a 54.9% hard-hit rate, so this recent power surge isn’t coming out of nowhere. If anything, he is capitalizing on the pop by hitting the ball in the air more frequently (a 22 degree launch angle from July 1-25 compared to 28 degrees over the last six contests).
The Marlins are appreciative of this stretch. Entering Friday, they had scored three runs or fewer in 12 of their past 16 games and lost 11 of those.
“He has the ability to slug, and you know on the other side [that] he’s someone that you have to circle and kind of game plan around because he does have the ability to change the scoreboard in the batter’s box and provide some real presence for us,” manager Clayton McCullough said.
