Of note late in the game, Miami’s Ichiro Suzuki led off the eighth with an infield single, the 2,999th hit of his career, before the Rockies bullpen closed out the victory.
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Prado hit a go-ahead, two-run single during a four-run rally in the ninth inning that sent Miami over the Colorado Rockies 5-3 in a matchup of NL wild-card contenders. The hit was t.
Suzuki, the Marlins’ 42-year-old star, is one hit away from the magic 3,000-hit mark.
The Rockies made sure Ichiro Suzuki got no closer to his 3,000th hit.
A fan keeps the current hit count of Miami Marlins’ Ichiro Suzuki’s during the eighth inning of a baseball game against the Colorado Rockies, Saturday, Aug. 6, 2016, in Denver. He stepped into the box, kicked a little dirt around, set his back foot, set his front foot, rolled his shoulders and pointed the bat straight up and wrist toward center as the pitcher came set.
Nolan Arenado hit a potential double-play grounder to shortstop, but Gordon’s relay throw at second was high and wide of first, allowing LeMahieu to score and Arenado to take second.
Suzuki is the first Japanese player to achieve this hitting milestone. He is in an 0-for-11 slump.
Ichiro Suzuki became the 30th player in baseball history to reach 3,000 MLB hits on Sunday, but did so in a way only one player before him has done – with a triple. The rally almost short-circuited when Nolan Arenado took the green light on a 3-0 pitch and hit a chopper to Miami shortstop Hechavarria for what looked like a sure double play.
“I’m not going to say I wasn’t thinking about it”, Blackmon said.
The Marlins scored four runs in the ninth inning to beat the Colorado Rockies 5-3.
“We got a long way to go”, Weiss said.
Suzuki is in his 16th season in the majors.
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Blackmon hit his 13th home run in the first. The Marlins have scored 15 runs in their last three games and four or more runs in nine of their last 11 games. The Marlins’ muscular right fielder and reigning Home Run Derby champion obliterated Chad Bettis’ 88 miles per hour changeup and sent the baseball flying deep into the left-center field seats for a solo homer to give Miami a 3-2 lead. At the time of his triple, Ichiro was 9 for 40 (.225) since the All-Star break, with most of those appearances coming off the bench as the Marlins – jockeying for playoff positioning – rolled with their starting outfield of Christian Yelich, Marcell Ozuna and Giancarlo Stanton. Miami nicked the veteran left-hander for one run on four hits in six innings. Not with the game on the line, Weiss said emphatically, before adding, “Hopefully we can get up 10, and he can get up again and shoot a single to left”.
