Surging Marlins belt huge homers to sweep Giants, extend win streak

SAN FRANCISCO -- If Major League Baseball learns anything about the 2025 Marlins, it’s that they aren’t pushovers. Playing some of its best ball this month (11-12 record), Miami no longer resides in the National League East cellar.

Kyle Stowers and Agustín Ramírez went deep in Thursday afternoon’s 12-5 Marlins victory over the Giants at Oracle Park to extend their season-long win streak to four and secure their second sweep of 2025 after producing a season high for runs.

Each Miami starter collected at least one hit, as the club tallied double-digit knocks for the fourth straight game. Entering the series finale, the Marlins led the NL with 204 hits and a collective .267 average in June.

“I think our guys aren't going to back down from anyone,” manager Clayton McCullough said. “It's great we have some edge to us, and I think now what's been going on the last three weeks, a month, our guys are just realizing that we can come up and we can play with anyone, and we can win a variety of different kinds of games, close ones.

“Offensively, [we’ve] been terrific lately. Our guys come in every day expecting to win, and I think they're showing a lot of grit and a lot of backbone. You look at last night how they were able to come back, and we bounced right back in the 10th. Very similar today. So I think it's a group that should and does have a lot of confidence in themselves, and guys that are just going to have each other's back all the way.”

There were fireworks in the first inning as the umpiring crew issued warnings to both teams after righty Hayden Birdsong hit Otto Lopez with a pitch with two outs. McCullough came out of the dugout to object and got tossed by home-plate umpire Alfonso Márquez.

It ignited Miami’s lineup. Ramírez followed with a double and Stowers, who attended Stanford, rocketed a hanging slider well over the center-field wall for a three-run shot. It traveled a projected distance of 440 feet -- the farthest-hit ball of his Major League career.

“Just scoring early is huge,” Stowers said. “I think it was big for us, and glad that I was able to be in a spot to have the opportunity to drive in some runs.”

In the third, Ramírez crushed a two-run homer deep to left to extend Miami’s lead to 5-0. Ramírez also connected on a hanging slider, depositing the pitch a projected 443 feet – the second-farthest-hit ball of his career.

The Marlins became the second team with two 440-plus-foot home runs in a game at Oracle Park under Statcast (2015), joining the Padres (May 9, 2021). The taters were the two longest this season at the Giants’ ballpark. Ramírez and Stowers, both of whom are making cases to represent Miami at the All-Star Game, are tied for the team lead in homers (12). The friendly banter hasn’t begun.

“As long as it benefits the team, I think that's the most important part,” Ramírez said via interpreter Luis Dorante Jr. “We can joke around, but that's the results of the hard work that we're putting into every day.”

After San Francisco erased Miami’s five-run lead in the fourth, the Marlins scored the next seven runs to break the game open. They put together a two-out rally on Eric Wagaman’s two-run double and Connor Norby’s RBI single in the fifth for an 8-5 lead.

The benches and bullpens then cleared at the end of the seventh inning following lefty Cade Gibson’s strikeout of Wilmer Flores. Xavier Edwards (two-run double), Lopez (RBI single) and Ramírez (RBI single) padded the lead in the eighth.

“I think the best way to do it was responding with our offense,” said Ramírez, who fell a triple shy of the cycle. “It is the best way to do it, and that's the best thing we had.”

Over the past two weeks, the Marlins dropped three of four to the NL East-leading Phillies, though all three losses were decided by three runs or fewer. They took two of three against the postseason hopeful Braves and swept the postseason hopeful Giants.

“We're just playing really clean baseball,” Stowers said. “When you're a good team, you're in a lot of close games and you find ways to win those close games. And I think that's just kind of what it is. Some of those ones that were close earlier in the year that weren't going our way are starting to kind of turn our way a little bit more.”