MIAMI (AP) — Kyle Stowers homered, major league batting leader Otto López had his 40th multi-hit game and the Miami Marlins beat the Seattle Mariners 2-0 on Wednesday night.
Tyler Phillips (2-3) pitched five sharp innings, allowing four hits on 71 pitches, before three relievers finished off Miami’s fifth straight victory. The Marlins are a major league-best 25-8 since June 1.
López went 2 for 4, increasing his average to .345 and becoming the first player since Houston’s Jose Altuve in 2014 with 40 multi-hit games before the All-Star break. His fifth-inning double tied Luis Arraez in 2023 for the most hits by a Marlins player before the All-Star break at 126.
Xavier Edwards added an RBI triple on a two-hit night.
Reliever Cade Gibson threw two perfect innings and Michael Petersen worked the eighth. Pete Fairbanks pitched around Josh Naylor’s one-out single in the ninth for his 13th save.
Stowers led off the second by sending first pitch from George Kirby (7-8) over the center field wall for his 12th homer.
Edwards’ triple in the third made it 2-0. López reached on a two-out single and raced home when Edwards hit a line drive that rolled to the warning track in right.
Kirby gave up two runs and eight hits over six innings. He struck out seven and has allowed two runs in each of his last three starts.
Marlins slugger Owen Caissie, who turned 24 on Wednesday and is tied for second on the club in homers with 12, exited in the second because of right calf tightness.
Up next
RHP Bryce Miller (4-2, 1.71 ERA) will start for the Mariners on Thursday as they try to avoid a three-game sweep. RHP Janson Junk (3-5, 4.80) pitches for the Marlins.
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