MIAMI -- As soon as Xavier Edwards made contact with righty Jackson Rutledge’s cutter, he immediately looked over at the left-field scoreboard for the advanced metrics.
He saw: 100.6 mph exit velocity; 39-degree launch angle.
Edwards thought he had gotten enough of the pitch for a three-run homer in the Marlins’ 8-3 comeback victory over the Nationals on Wednesday night at loanDepot park.
But Edwards saw right fielder Dylan Crews leap at the wall and rob him -- or so he thought. Edwards momentarily stopped before first base and dejectedly began taking off his batting gloves until he noticed first-base umpire Laz Diaz motioning a home run.
“It happened pretty quick,” said Edwards, who has three homers on the season after entering 2025 with just one in his career. “Honestly, I was kind of out of it. I thought I flew out and I was like, ‘Kind of fitting for how things have been going.’”
According to Statcast, it was a home run in just 11 ballparks. But all that mattered is it counted in Miami. It was the icing on the cake of Edwards’ three-hit performance -- his first since Aug. 8, when he was flirting with the batting title with a .303 average. From then through last week’s series finale in D.C., Edwards had a slash line of .196/.226/.275 with four extra-base hits, three walks and 17 strikeouts in 24 games, as his average dropped to .279 entering Wednesday.
So manager Clayton McCullough, after several conversations with a slumping Edwards, sat him for a mental break on Friday and Saturday against the Phillies.
It gave Edwards a chance to observe the game in a different light, relax and reset. He stayed away from watching old footage and worked on a few tweaks with his approach: knowing when to take shots, seeing the ball deeper and controlling the strike zone better.
In the three games following his break entering Wednesday, Edwards had walked three times, struck out just once and collected two hits -- both singles.
“Do I think those two days [off] led to this? I don't know,” McCullough said. “I think it was an opportunity for him to -- at least more mentally -- just slow things down and relax a little bit, and come to work a couple days and not have to gear yourself up to go compete.
"And I think, more than anything, him getting some hits and moving the ball forward with a little more authority, more on a line hitting the ball hard again on the ground, lower trajectory, is a good thing for X. If anything, those couple days just gave him a chance to step back and relax a little bit. So I hope I don't have to do it again for a long time.”
Edwards was also part of Miami’s sixth-inning rally. Held scoreless by righty Jake Irvin through the fifth, the Marlins turned a 3-0 deficit into a 4-3 lead while taking advantage of the Nationals’ sloppy defense.
Maximo Acosta (Marlins No. 23 prospect) reached on shortstop CJ Abrams’ fielding error to open the frame. Edwards and Jakob Marsee followed with back-to-back singles, with Marsee’s leading to a run and advancing Edwards to third on the play, after the ball briefly got away from Crews. Otto Lopez tallied an RBI on a fielder’s choice, which included a missed tag and replay review that resulted in ejections of both Irvin and Nationals interim manager Miguel Cairo.
So, with Nats lefty PJ Poulin taking the mound, McCullough turned to consecutive right-handed pinch-hitters.
Agustín Ramírez grounded a single through the hole on the left side of the infield for the game-tying RBI hit -- on his 24th birthday -- while Eric Wagaman produced the go-ahead ground-ball RBI single to right.
“[Pinch-hitting is] very important,” Ramírez said. “It's part of the game, and this is very important because there's more chances to win or change the game. It doesn't matter the score, just be prepared and good work for that moment.”
The Marlins’ rally -- and their first lead of the season series since June 15, when Miami completed a three-game sweep of Washington in D.C. -- helped snap their five-game skid against their division rival.
Lopez tacked on an insurance run with an RBI single in the seventh before Edwards took Rutledge deep in the eighth. Edwards had entered Wednesday leading the club with a .315 average in the seventh inning or later.
“A step in the right direction, just to show that some of the work I've been putting in hopefully is paying off,” Edwards said. “Just try to stay somewhere in the middle: not too high, not too low."