MIAMI — The Miami Marlins are 16-22. They have lost the first two games of this Orioles series in two different and equally creative ways. Tuesday: Sandy Alcántara gave up seven runs in four-and-a-third, the announced gate was 6,600, the Orioles came in losing five straight and walked out of loanDepot park up a game. Wednesday: Eury Pérez gave up a 109-mph, 407-foot three-run Pete Alonso home run in the first inning before half the building had finished sitting down, the Marlins clawed back to tie it at three an inning later, and then the Orioles scored in five different innings to win 7-4. Attendance Wednesday: 6,607. Roof closed. Same building. Same week. New way to lose.
Miami Marlins manager Clayton McCullough, left, takes the ball from Miami Marlins starting pitcher Eury Perez (39) as he makes a pitching change during the sixth inning of a baseball game against the Baltimore Orioles, Wednesday, May 6, 2026, in Miami. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
If you like watching a team find new ways to lose close games in front of fewer than 8,000 fans, the Marlins have you covered Thursday at 6:40 p.m. ET. If you like promotional weekends at loanDepot park with shiny new callups making their MLB debut, that’s Friday. Both are valid. Both are the same homestand.
The August 3 trade deadline is 88 days away. The Marlins are five games under .500. The run differential is a deceptive minus-7 — the result of a team that wins or loses by margins of one or two runs, finds itself in the lineup-leaderboard conversation across the league, and still cannot get over .500. The best three hitters on the team all make $800,000. The starting pitcher Thursday night, the one currently keeping the rotation honest, takes the ball at 6:40 p.m. ET and his name is Max Meyer.
Miami Marlins pitcher Dax Fulton pitches during the sixth inning of a baseball game against the Baltimore Orioles, Wednesday, May 6, 2026, in Miami. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
Miami Marlins pitcher Max Meyer (23) tries to pick off Philadelphia Phillies’ Alec Bohm during the fifth inning of a baseball game, Saturday, May 2, 2026, in Miami. (AP Photo/Michael Laughlin)
This is a 2026 photo of Thomas White of the Miami Marlins baseball team. It reflects the Miami Marlins active roster, Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2026, when this photo was taken. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)
Miami Marlins pitcher Robby Snelling works out during spring training baseball, Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026, in Jupiter, Fla. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)
The One Thing Working
Max Meyer has been very good. Quietly, on a roster nobody outside Miami is watching, on a team that just lost two straight to a Baltimore Orioles club that walked in on a five-game skid, Meyer has put together one of the better starts to a season any National League pitcher is having. The line: 2-0, 2.68 ERA, 40 strikeouts in 37 innings, a 26 percent strikeout rate, an 8.4 percent walk rate, and a 3.60 SIERA that says the surface numbers are real. He is the No. 3 overall pick from the 2020 draft, finally healthy in his first full season since August 2022 Tommy John surgery, and he is making $980,000 to be the Marlins’ best starter.
He is also the most realistic deadline trade chip the Marlins have that nobody is talking about yet. Sandy Alcántara is the name on every July rumor list. Meyer is the name that should be. Alcántara is in the final year of his contract. Meyer is controllable through 2029. A Cy Young winner with one half-season left brings back a lottery ticket. A 26-year-old No. 3 overall pick under team control for four more years brings back a haul. The Marlins, with the second-lowest payroll in baseball and an MLBPA grievance pending against them for not spending revenue-sharing money, are not in any rush to do anything with him. But the math is going to start asking the question by July.
The One Bat To Watch For
Pete Alonso is in the visiting clubhouse and Pete Alonso has hit Max Meyer before. The career line is 1-for-2 with a double, .500/1.850 OPS. That is a tiny sample. It is also the bat that opened Wednesday’s scoring with the 109-mph, 407-foot three-run home run off Eury Pérez in the first inning, the bat that hit two doubles off Sandy on Tuesday, and the bat that has driven in three runs in each of the last two games. Alonso has had this series. Meyer has to keep him in the ballpark. If Meyer keeps Alonso in the ballpark, the rest of the Baltimore lineup has very little career experience against him.
Pete Alonso hits a 3-run homer and Orioles get 2nd straight win over Marlins, 7-4
The Other Guy
Cade Povich (1-1, 4.41 ERA, 11 K) starts for Baltimore. He is a 25-year-old left-hander making his sixth start of the season. The Marlins lineup has almost no career history against him — Christopher Morel is 0-for-2 with two walks (.000/1.000) in three career plate appearances. Leo Jiménez is 0-for-2 with a walk (.000/.666) in his three. Most of the rest of the lineup is seeing him for the first time. Povich is a fifth starter on a Baltimore rotation missing two arms to the IL — the second straight night Miami draws a back-end Orioles arm, and the second straight night the Marlins lineup will need to do the work itself.
Baltimore Orioles’ pitcher Cade Povich reacts after New York Yankees’ Ben Rice hit a three-run home run during the second inning of a baseball game Friday, May 1, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
How To Watch
- Thursday May 7 · 6:40 PM ET · loanDepot park, Miami
- TV: Marlins.TV (Miami) · MASN (Baltimore)
- Streaming: MLB.TV · Fubo
- Radio: WQAM 104.3 · WAQI 710 AM (Spanish) · 98 Rock 97.9 FM · WBAL 1090 AM
What’s Actually At Stake
The Marlins are 16-22. The Atlanta Braves have run away with the National League East. The Wild Card math says Miami needs to play near-perfect baseball through summer to even sit at the table. The market has the Marlins at +820 to make the playoffs and -2000 to miss. The trade deadline is approaching the way trade deadlines always approach the Marlins — in a slow downward spiral, with the lineup producing top-five hitters on league-minimum salaries, a starting rotation working its way through a parade of top-100 prospects, and a building drawing fewer than 8,000 fans on a Tuesday and Wednesday with the team’s two most marketable arms on the mound.
If you want to watch a fire-sale-in-progress find another new way to lose a close one, that’s tonight. If you want a glimpse of what the rebuild is going to look like once the names everyone knows are gone, that’s tomorrow when 22-year-old Robby Snelling makes his MLB debut. If you want both, the homestand is at loanDepot park through Sunday.
Max Meyer takes the ball at 6:40. The Marlins need him to stay undefeated more than he probably needs it himself.
— MT
