MIAMI — In the span of about six minutes inside loanDepot park on Monday, rookie outfielder Jesus Sanchez showed how he can impact a game both in the batter’s box and in the field.
Not to be outdone, fellow rookie Jazz Chisholm Jr. showcased a double-dose of his power as well within a span of three innings and then used his speed to his advantage help seal Miami’s second walk-off victory of the season — an 8-7 win over the Washington Nationals in 10 innings to begin a three-game series.
Together, Sanchez and Chisholm are providing a glimpse of what having multiple power-hitting lefty bats can do for a lineup.
“You need to have left-handed bats in your order,” Marlins manager Don Mattingly said. “You see the better teams have a number of them, maybe not guys that play every day but at least in platoon-type roles. You see San Francisco and you see LA [Dodgers] and certain teams, they can go line up and put your righties in a bind if they’re good. So it’s nice to have the power and the pop out of those guys. I mean, it’s today’s game. You’ve got to be able to score runs. Those are quick runs.”
Before diving deeper into Sanchez and Chisholm, the quick recap of the win that moved Miami to 64-86: The Marlins rallied back from being down three runs twice, erasing a 3-0 deficit with a three-run third inning and coming back from a 7-4 deficit with three runs in the seventh, got out of a bases-loaded, one-out jam in the top of the 10th and scored the deciding run when Chisholm (Miami’s automatic runner to start the bottom of the 10th) stole third and scored on a wild pitch.
Let’s start with Sanchez. The 23-year-old sent an Erick Fedde curveball thrown over the heart of the plate a projected 421 feet to right-center field to tie the game 3-3 in the third inning. It was Sanchez’s 13th home run of the season and his 10th that went at least 400 feet according to Statcast.
A half inning later, Sanchez made a web gem of a defensive play. He overran a Lane Thomas fly ball down the right-field line, backpedaled after running into foul territory and caught the ball bare-handed.
Chisholm, meanwhile, had his first career multi-home run game, going deep in the third and fifth innings. He sent a Fedde cutter into the upper deck in right field in the third inning to score Miami’s first run of the game, two at-bats before Sanchez’s game-tying home run. In the fifth, Chisholm lifted a curveball at the bottom of the strike zone and sent it a projected 427 feet to right-center field.
The 23-year-old middle infielder now has 17 home runs and 24 stolen bases this season. He has a chance to become the first Marlins player since Hanley Ramirez in 2010 to record at least 20 home runs and 20 stolen bases in a season. Only four players have ever accomplished the feat in franchise history (Ramirez in 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010; Derrek Lee in 2003; Preston Wilson in 2000, 2001 and 2002; and Cliff Floyd in 1998 and 2000).
