Really good win for the Marlins tonight, and the story of the game has to start with Graham Pauley.

The guy has been up and down between Miami and the minors so many times this year it feels like a running joke at this point, but he got called up again today and immediately made it worth it. He hit a 2-run homer in the second inning, and then just for good measure added a 2-run triple in the seventh. Every single time this guy gets a chance he seems to do something with it, and tonight was no different.

Kyle Stowers also had a nice moment, hitting a home run in the fifth inning, his first since before he went down with the hamstring injury. He hadn’t gone deep at all in August, so getting him back to hitting the ball out is a great sign with September here and the Marlins still trying to make a real push.

Tyler Phillips was excellent on the mound, going 5 innings and allowing just 1 hit and 0 runs. Really strong start from him. I’ll admit I was a little surprised they didn’t send him back out for the sixth, he looked great and was cruising, but it worked out fine in the end so I won’t complain too much.

We also got the MLB debut of Jared Serna in the eighth inning, and unfortunately it was about as rough a first at-bat as you can have. He saw one pitch and grounded into an inning-ending double play. Not the way you draw up your first career at-bat, but that’s baseball, and he’ll get plenty more chances to make a better first impression going forward.

The one shaky part of the night was Victor Vodnik. He pitched the seventh and came back out for the eighth, and that’s where things got messy, allowing 2 runs in that inning. There was also a wild moment where what looked like a balk that would have brought in a third run was initially called, only for the umpires to get together and overturn it to no balk. Kansas City’s manager was furious about it and got ejected arguing the call. Chaos aside, Vodnik settled things down enough to get out of the eighth without doing any real further damage to the lead.

Tyler Zuber came in for the ninth and gave up a solo home run to Kansas City, making it look a little closer than it really was, but the Marlins closed it out for a 6-3 win.

Really encouraging game across the board, great pitching from Phillips, Pauley coming up big again the second he got the call, and Stowers finally breaking out of that power drought. Good way to open this series.

Let’s hope Eury and Sandy can bounce back in the next two games and get wins to take this series.

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