MIAMI _ It took the rainmaker to break one of the worst South Florida droughts in July in recent memory.
Not talking about meteorological matters. Rather the Miami Marlins' baffling inability to push across runs under the roof at Marlins Park.
It extended to 24 innings without a run before Giancarlo Stanton put an end to it Tuesday. Though, not with one of his cloud-scraping home runs, but rather a well-placed single through a hole on the right side of the infield with two outs in the sixth inning against Jerad Eickhoff.
Martin Prado, who got on with a double, slid home ahead of the throw. It wasn't much to show for three days of bat flailing and teeth-gnashing, but it got the Marlins back on track after back-to-back shutouts and on the way to a 5-0 victory against the Phillies.
Stanton drove another run home with a more emphatically characteristic hit in the eighth, a ground-rule double that opened the floodgates in a four-run inning.
Stanton would have had a triple had the ball not taken an unfortunate bounce above the fence. That briefly took a run off the board, but no matter. Adeiny Hechvarria sent Prado and Stanton home with a two-run single.
The spark for the big inning was Ichiro Suzuki, who started for the first time on the homestand and greeted reliever Andrew Bailey with a leadoff single to left to pull within three hits of 3,000. No. 2,997 ended a 0-for-7 mini-drought for Ichiro.
Ichiro came up again as the Marlins batted around, but hit a foul fly to left against Severino Gonzalez to end the inning.
Tom Koehler (six shutout innings) and three relievers combined on the shutout. Koehler continued his mastery of the Phillies this season, now with a 1.29 ERA in four starts against them this season.
While the Marlins were grasping for offense, they were fortunate to get another superlative effort by a starting pitcher.
Koehler has had an up-and-down season but has been lights-out against the Phillies, holding them to four runs in 28 innings.
He had gone at least seven innings in each, including holding them to two hits in eight innings last week in Philadelphia. This time he gave up three hits in six innings before exiting after 73 pitches (51 strikes).
Koehler allowed only a single to Freddy Galvis the first time through the order, and Galvis was caught stealing to end the third.
Good command of his fastball added to the effectiveness of his sharp-diving knuckle-curve. He used it to put away dangerous Ryan Howard to end the fourth with a runner on second.
He created some trouble for himself in the sixth by walking Eickhoff, the first free pass he issued. Cesar Hernandez followed with a one-out single, but Koehler slipped off the hook by inducing a couple of popups.
Meanwhile, a Marlins team that was tied for the best batting average in the National League hadn't scored since Saturday. But the lack of scoring has been a season-long issue as they were 11th in runs score.
It was more of the same for five innings against Eickhoff, a middling right-hander they'd knocked around for six runs in five innings last week in Philadelphia.
Eickhoff picked up the torch from teammate Jeremy Hellickson and the Mets' Steven Matz in handcuffing Marlins hitters and throwing the key away.
Prado, as he often does, provided the karma-altering hit with a double to left with one out in the sixth. Stanton steered rather than drove the run-scoring hit the opposite way on Eickhoff's 1-2 fastball.
The Marlins managed only five hits in seven innings against Eickhoff, who struck out eight.
The night started with a promising jolt when Ichiro smacked the first pitch from Eickhoff deep to right-center. But Peter Bourjos played spoil-sport to Ichiro's chase for 3,000 hits as he hauled in the 394-foot drive before crashing into the fence.
Bourjos would leave the game an inning later with an injury to his right shoulder. The Marlins didn't hit many balls after that as hard as he hit the wall.
An exception was Jeff Mathis' two-out double to left in the second. He was stranded there, and was the only Marlin to advance to scoring position until Prado's double four innings later.
