Soler soars 901 feet with 2 scorching homers

PHOENIX -- The roof was open at Chase Field for the Marlins’ 6-2 victory over the D-backs on Tuesday night, so you’ll have to forgive Jorge Soler’s teammates for mistaking his two home runs for celestial objects.

“They were moon shots,” pitcher Jesús Luzardo said.

“They looked like shooting stars, I could tell you that,” center fielder Jazz Chisholm Jr. added.

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With the Marlins ahead, 1-0, and two runners on base in the second inning, Soler rocketed a four-seamer from rookie right-hander Brandon Pfaadt onto the left-center concourse a projected 468 feet from home plate -- tying for his farthest-hit homer since at least 2015. It left the bat at a game-high exit velocity of 112.5 mph.

“I haven't seen a ball hit that far in a long time,” manager Skip Schumaker said. “That first one was pretty incredible. There's not too many guys that have that kind of raw real power, and he's a smart player. It's just not ‘huge guy hits home run.’

“He's really good at preparing and figuring out what the guy has, and he's the one that's talking in meetings and he's one of the leaders in there. So it's pretty impressive to see.”

Soler took Pfaadt deep again – this time only a projected 433 feet with an exit velo of 110.7 mph – in the fifth inning for a two-run blast. This power surge marked the sixth time a Marlin has belted multiple 110-plus mph homers in a game tracked by Statcast (since 2015). The other five were by Giancarlo Stanton.

After a mini-slump from April 24-May 3 (.061 average), Soler has multi-hit games in three of the last six. Through 35 games this season, Soler has nine homers. Tuesday was his second multi-homer game of ‘23 (April 5 vs. Twins).

“Right now, I'm looking at the ball in a good way,” Soler said via interpreter Luis Dorante Jr. “You can see that it looks better. But when I see the ball that way and I stay in the strike zone, I kind of get results like right now.”

While Soler’s 901 feet worth of homers understandably elicited jaw-dropping reactions, Chisholm’s production in front of him set the tone. Chisholm singled on Pfaadt’s first pitch of the game and stole second base on the next offering. He scored two batters later on Luis Arraez’s RBI single.

Chisholm also reached via free passes in his next two plate appearances (with another steal sprinkled in) and scored on Soler’s home runs.

Entering Tuesday, Chisholm was 3-for-27 with no extra-base hits, one RBI, two walks and nine strikeouts in his past eight games. During that stretch, Miami was 2-6 with just 2.9 runs per game.

Perhaps the threat of Chisholm’s wheels caused Pfaadt to throw mistake pitches to Soler. The first homer came on a middle-middle 93.5 mph four-seamer, the second on a hanging slider.

“Sometimes that can be the case,” Chisholm said. “They're paying attention to me so much on second base that they leave a pitch over the middle. That's what I'm there for. I'm there to cause havoc. I'm there to like mess with his head, even if I'm not on the base moving or doing anything. I'm just there to be in his mind.”

The Marlins improved to 11-3 when they score first, but that also means they do so just 38% of the time. The club has been playing behind too much, thus making the margin for error pretty slim for the pitching staff.

Luzardo took advantage of the early lead, giving up just one run over six innings for his first win since April 11. He has pitched into the sixth in each of his last three starts, and the ballclub captured two of those games.

“I feel like it'd be stupid for me not to say that -- with a little bit of breathing room you definitely feel it on the mound,” Luzardo said. “But I feel like everyone has the same mentality that it's a 0-0 game every time we take the mound, and we shouldn't take our foot off the gas pedal, by any means.”