Arraez, Soler have cruising Marlins at 14-year best

MIAMI -- The last time the Marlins were 11 games over .500, they had a different name, uniform and ballpark. Hit machine Luis Arraez was playing Little League ball in San Felipe, Venezuela. Eury Pérez was 6 years old.

Fourteen years later, the surging Marlins reached that benchmark by cruising to an 11-0 victory over the Blue Jays on Monday night at loanDepot park. Miami cranked out a season-high 19 hits for its 17th win in 22 games. Arraez raised his average to .400 with a 5-for-5 performance, Jorge Soler smacked his 21st homer and Bryan Hoeing went four strong innings to open a bullpen game.

“I don't think it's a speech that I've made,” first-time manager Skip Schumaker said. “It's more the players that we've acquired and the staff that we have, that there's been a consistent message from Day 1 that the expectation every day is to win. I don't think that goes away if you have a winning streak or losing streak. There's so many games, and every day you walk in, you expect to get better -- win or lose, you try to get better, learn from that day and move on to the next day.

“But there's always learning moments, teaching moments every single day, and these guys have bought in. Our staff has been excellent at prepping them, and win or lose, they're in the fight every day, and it feels good that at least they're in the fight no matter what happens.”

Paving the way is newcomer Arraez, whose hitless streak reached a season-high 15 at-bats after going 0-for-3 in Seattle on Wednesday night. He has gone 11-for-14 since. On Monday, he became the first Major Leaguer with three five-hit games in a calendar month since Hall of Famer Dave Winfield of the Yankees in June 1984; the only two other players to do so are Hall of Famers Ty Cobb of the Tigers in July 1922 and George Sisler of the Browns in August 1921. His first three knocks came against former Twins teammate José Berríos, and his fifth was a two-run single in the seventh.

The 26-year-old second baseman also is the first player since Dee Strange-Gordon in 2015 to compile more than 100 hits through his first 67 games of a season. Strange-Gordon would go on to lead the Majors with 205 hits that season, capturing the Silver Slugger Award and batting .333 with the Marlins.

“This is fun, because we won, everybody got a hit, so I'm excited for this team,” said Arraez, whom Miami acquired in a January trade for Pablo López and two prospects. “Now everybody starts to trust this team. I trusted this team when I came here for the first time, because we've got relievers, we've got starting and we've got a really good defense. This is fun, man, this is fun.”

Behind Arraez in the lineup comes slugger Soler, who has bounced back after a disappointing first season with the Marlins in 2022 following World Series MVP honors with the ‘21 Braves. His 21 home runs are third in the Majors behind Shohei Ohtani (24) and Pete Alonso (22).

Soler, who broke a scoreless deadlock in the third inning with a two-run laser, is on pace for 45 homers -- three shy of his career high, set in 2019 when he led the American League as a member of the Royals.

“Everything's coming out right the way I was hoping and planning,” Soler said via interpreter Luis Dorante Jr. “I was out here during the whole offseason working really hard, and I think all the hard work is paying off.”

And the pitching staff is holding down the fort with three-fifths of the rotation sidelined. With Edward Cabrera landing on the injured list with a right shoulder impingement on Saturday, Miami elected to go with a bullpen game when his turn came up. The Marlins don’t have a traditional long man, so the club used Hoeing, Huascar Brazoban (two innings), JT Chargois (one inning) and Archie Bradley (two innings) for the club’s fifth shutout.

Hoeing, who last started on April 30, needed 54 pitches to get through four frames. In the third and fourth, he stranded a runner at third each time, thanks to a key grounder and a strikeout.

“It's great,” said Hoeing, who last pitched a week ago. “Five wins in a row now. We're playing some really good baseball right now. This is the most fun that I've had playing baseball in a long time. The culture here is a winning culture. I think we go into each game now expecting to win. It's really fun to be a part of, and the fact that I was able to just go out there and throw four good innings for our team, to get our team a chance to win, meant a lot.”