MIAMI – All-Star Kyle Stowers lifted the game-winning two-run homer in the Marlins’ 8-7 walk-off win over the Royals in 10 innings on Friday night at loanDepot park. It marked Miami’s seventh walk-off victory of the season and Stowers’ second walk-off home run.
In a game Miami led 5-0 in the third, Sandy Alcantara surrendered all four of his runs in the fourth, including three of them on John Rave’s first career long ball. The Marlins nursed that one-run lead until righty Calvin Faucher gave up the game-tying solo homer to Rave in the ninth.
After Lake Bachar allowed a two-out, two-run double to pinch-hitter Adam Frazier in the 10th, Agustín Ramírez knocked an RBI single and Stowers deposited an elevated four-seamer from righty Carlos Estévez to right.
Early on, Miami jumped on righty Seth Lugo with first-inning homers by Jesús Sánchez and Stowers to take a 3-0 lead. The Marlins added a pair of runs in the third on Otto Lopez’s RBI double and Stowers’ RBI single.
Sánchez sent a sinker over the plate to straightaway center for a solo shot, snapping a 23-game homerless drought in the process.
Three batters later, Stowers crushed a two-run homer over the right-center wall for his 20th tater of the season. He became the first Marlins lefty bat to reach that milestone since Justin Bour in 2017, and just the seventh in franchise history — (Bour (2017, ‘15), Christian Yelich (‘16), Logan Morrison (‘11), Mike Jacobs (‘08, ‘06), Carlos Delgado (‘05), Cliff Floyd (‘01, ‘00, 1998).
Until his fifth-inning strikeout, Stowers also had a hit in eight consecutive at-bats and had reached base safely in 10 straight plate appearances — both tied for club records.
During the All-Star Game, the reigning National League Player of the Week also went deep once while leading off for the NL in the inaugural swing-off.
