Norby makes Marlins history with 6 XBHs in first 6 games

MIAMI -- The remainder of the 2024 season is a chance for the Marlins to not only play spoiler but to also see which more recent additions can be a part of their future.

Connor Norby and Jesús Sánchez homered to back right-hander Adam Oller in the Marlins’ 7-2 win over the Cubs on Sunday afternoon at loanDepot park to snap a five-game skid. While Sánchez is the longest-tenured position player on the club, Norby and Oller only just joined Miami on Monday to begin the homestand and they had big impacts in its finale.

“We have a lot of those guys,” manager Skip Schumaker said. “We have a lot of those guys that need some confidence at this level, believing that they can do it. But until you do it, you don't know. You're still unsure. [Oller’s] a guy that's been moved around quite a bit in his career, at his age, he maybe hasn't got a real shot, but he's going to get a real shot here.”

Oller, who signed a Minor League contract with the Marlins on July 10, didn’t make the best of first impressions on Monday. After permitting five runs and walking four over 4 2/3 innings, Schumaker and pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre Jr. told him to attack the zone and trust his stuff. So Oller spent the week working on his fastball command, then executed on Sunday by turning to the four-seamer 71.6 percent of the time.

As a result, the 29-year-old picked up the win in a game he started for the first time since Aug. 17, 2022. Oller allowed one run on four hits and two walks across 5 2/3 innings -- the deepest he has pitched in a game since Aug. 27, 2022 -- while tying his career high with six strikeouts.

At one point, Oller retired 11 consecutive batters before Cody Bellinger’s one-out walk in the sixth. Following a fielder’s choice, manager Skip Schumaker brought in righty Declan Cronin to record the final out of the frame.

“I think org number eight for me on my career,” Oller said. “You can look at it two different ways: You can look at it negatively or positively. I choose to look at it positively. There's stuff that I've been able to take from every single organization that I've played with.”

Oller set the tone and received support from the offense, which struck with a pair of homers against righty Javier Assad in the first inning.

Norby, who ambushed a first-pitch fastball, notched his first career leadoff homer as part of a career-high three-hit performance. He has gone deep in back-to-back games -- both at the top of the order while Xavier Edwards is nursing lower back discomfort. Sánchez sent a curveball to straightaway center for his 16th homer of the season two batters later.

The 24-year-old Norby also doubled to lead off the third, advancing to third on Jake Burger’s flyout to left-center before scoring on Sánchez’s groundout to second. Norby has tallied six extra-base hits through his first six games with the Marlins, setting a club record.

Clinging to a 3-1 lead in the eighth inning, Miami tacked on four runs while sending eight batters to the plate. In the middle of that outburst was Kyle Stowers, who joined Norby in the Trade Deadline deal and produced a two-out RBI double.

Both Stowers and Norby (Miami’s No. 3 prospect, per MLB Pipeline) come from a Baltimore organization that keeps churning out elite position-player prospects. Both were blocked at the big league level, which made them trade chips.

“I think there's always pressure here in the big leagues, so you want to play well, you want to stay up here, right?” Norby said. “I think it's different [from the pressure in Baltimore], and I try not to look at it, because the more you look at it, then you can kind of collapse on yourself a little bit. But in the end of the day, it's every player's dream, really, to be something where they're building around you in a way for the future. And that's what you kind of want as a player.

“Baltimore, obviously, it's ‘Win now’ for them, but we're going to get there soon enough. I was talking about it yesterday. Once we get all these pitchers back, like it's a pretty good staff that we’ve got when they're healthy. And we've got some hitters -- and even down in [Triple-A] Jacksonville, from what I saw, the future's bright here. I can say that confidently, and I'm excited to be a part of it.”