Miami walks off again on Aguilar's HOME run

MIAMI -- Jesús Aguilar knew the question was coming postgame. All season, the Marlins, their fans and likely even Aguilar wondered when he would go deep at his home ballpark. Aguilar’s 13 homers had all come on the road, a feat not achieved by a Major Leaguer in four years.

With his name circulating in trade talks, Aguilar picked the perfect moment to end the narrative with a walk-off, three-run shot in Wednesday night's 9-6 win over the Dodgers at loanDepot park. With the victory, Miami has captured consecutive games in walk-off fashion for the first time since May 4-5, 2014, against the Dodgers and Mets.

Aguilar, a first baseman who is blocking prospect Lewin Díaz, has been Miami’s most reliable middle-of-the-order bat since joining the club in 2020. But one of the National League’s top run producers has been struggling to do so lately, slashing .237/.308/.322 with a .630 OPS and just one homer and five RBIs in his past 17 games.

Could the trade rumors be affecting his play? The 31-year-old insisted he tries not to think about his future. He can only control what he can control. Aguilar, who has one more year of arbitration eligibility, would be happy to stay in Miami.

“We’ve got a lot of guys in the injured list, but we’ve got to go out there and try to win games,” said Aguilar, who recorded his first walk-off homer since June 22, 2018. “That's happening now. Right now is the best moment to win games, because we're going to the Trade Deadline and all those things. We just try to win games, compete, especially we're playing really well against that team, [and] that team won the World Series last year. So I think we are going to be alright this year.”

The previous evening, Marlins CEO Derek Jeter and general manager Kim Ng expressed faith in their club's ability to go on a run leading up to the July 30 Trade Deadline. The Marlins (38-47) quietly have won seven of 11, but they are eight games back of the Mets (45-38) in the National League East.

The defending champions arrived in South Florida on a nine-game winning streak, as tough a challenge as any. Miami has aced it thus far, capturing its first four-game series against the Dodgers since a sweep on April 25-28, 2016, at Dodger Stadium. If the front office wanted a statement from the ballclub, it is providing an emphatic one.

“Those guys over there, they’ve played some good baseball, aggressive baseball,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “They’ve made the plays they needed to make, and they’ve made pitches. It’s a good club over there. They can really pitch. They have some talent over there, and they’ve put it on us the first three days.”

And it’s not just the veterans like Aguilar getting it done. Jesús Sánchez homered in the second and knocked a then-go-ahead, two-out RBI single in the eighth on a full-count cutter from closer Kenley Jansen. Dominant rookie Anthony Bender, however, was unable to secure his second save in as many chances, as fellow rookie Zach McKinstry knocked a game-tying homer to right.

Jordan Holloway pitched 4 1/3 scoreless relief innings and Garrett Cooper collected the first multi-homer game of his career. Holloway, who recently graduated from prospect status, took over in the third when opener Ross Detwiler was unable to record the final out and surrendered five runs.

Despite the Marlins still feeling the lingering effects of starter Pablo López throwing just one pitch last Friday in Atlanta, they still went with a bullpen game. Not helping matters was the club entering Wednesday having played five straight one-run ballgames, with two going into extras. High-leverage situations have been in abundance, like much of the season. Unlike most of 2021, the results are turning in Miami’s favor as of late.

Following the game, manager Don Mattingly called Holloway’s performance huge, with five relievers unavailable. Had he struggled, the Marlins might’ve been forced to throw Friday starter Zach Thompson and outfielder Magneuris Sierra out there.

“I think the Dodgers bring a lot out of you because you're playing the world champions,” Mattingly said. “I hope there was a sense of urgency. We talked so much about the one-run games, and if we could have half of them going on our way, we would be in pretty good shape.

“We've kind of started to find a little bit of our identity I think on our offense, we've been able to run a little bit more. Some things are going our way a little bit, outside of that Atlanta series. Some bad stuff, but for the most part, nothing's really changed, we've just been kind of coming up on the right end of these things lately.”