5th inning dooms Miami Marlins, Eury Perez in loss to Rockies

DENVER

For a second consecutive game, the Miami Marlins found themselves playing from behind against the Colorado Rockies.

And for a second consecutive game, the Marlins couldn’t complete the comeback.

Colorado’s four-run fifth inning put the Marlins in too big of a hole to come back from in an eventual 5-4 loss to the Rockies on Tuesday at Coors Field.

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The Marlins are now 24-25 on the season and 1-4 at the midway point of this three-city, 10-game road trip after dropping two of three against the San Francisco Giants and both games so far against the Rockies. All five games have been decided by two runs or fewer. The Rockies improve to 21-28.

Colorado sent eight batters to the plate in that pivotal fifth inning. The Rockies broke a 1-1 tie when Charlie Blackmon’s one-out double to right-center against Eury Perez scored Michael Toglia, who drew a walk to lead off the inning. A walk to Jurickson Profar in the next plate appearance ended Perez’s third start.

Huascar Brazoban, who relieved Perez, then allowed back-to-back singles, the second of which by Randal Grichuk drove in both runners Perez left on base when he was taken out. A Ryan McMahon fielder’s choice capped the scoring in the inning.

Before that fifth inning, Perez had held the Rockies to just one unearned run while striking out three and issuing just one walk.

Perez’s combined stats through his first three MLB starts: A 3.86 ERA (six earned runs over 14 innings) on 11 hits and six walks with 16 strikeouts.

Miami scored its first three runs on a pair of home runs — a Jorge Soler solo shot to center field in the first and a two-run home run from Garrett Cooper in the sixth — before Soler hit a one-out RBI double in the ninth to cut the deficit to one run.

The Marlins had multiple runners on base and fewer than two outs in both the seventh and eight innings but all four runners ended up being stranded.

Miami is 2 for 18 with runners in scoring position through the first two games of the series. They have stranded 19 runners on base.

▪ The Marlins have now played 10 consecutive games that have been decided by two runs or fewer.

▪ Cooper had been 1 for 18 with seven strikeouts on this road trip before his sixth-inning home run.

This story was originally published May 23, 2023 11:07 PM.