Marlins get long balls

Miami fell behind 2-0 in the first inning on April 8, then erased it before the game was three innings old and beat Cincinnati 7-4 at loanDepot park. Griffin Conine’s two-run homer in the third turned a 4-2 lead into a 6-2 cushion, and Connor Norby’s solo shot in the seventh restored a three-run gap after the Reds had crept back within two. (mlb.com) That swing from Conine came off Reds starter Brady Singer, who lasted only 2 2/3 innings and gave up six runs, five of them earned. Miami had already scored four times before Conine hit the second deck in right field, so his homer was the hit that turned a comeback into control. (espn.com) Norby’s homer mattered for a different reason. Sal Stewart’s two-run shot had cut Miami’s lead to 6-4 in the fifth, and Norby answered in the seventh against Connor Phillips for his first home run of the 2026 season. (espn.com) (mlb.com) This was not a one-man game around those two blasts. Xavier Edwards and Jakob Marsee each had two hits and one run batted in, and the Marlins pieced together their early offense with run-scoring hits from Agustín Ramírez, Liam Hicks, Marsee, and Edwards before the homers arrived. (espn.com) Miami also needed its young starter to settle down fast. Eury Pérez gave up two unearned runs in the first inning, then finished five innings with six strikeouts, one walk, and his first win of the season. (espn.com) The late innings held because four Marlins relievers covered the last four frames, and Michael Petersen worked around two singles in the ninth for his first career save. Cincinnati came in on a five-game winning streak, so Miami’s bullpen had to close the door on a lineup that had been scoring all week. (espn.com) Conine and Norby are also part of the same roster story. MLB described this Marlins club as one full of relatively inexperienced players trying not just to win games but to prove they belong, and those two hitters are squarely in that group. (mlb.com) Conine is 28 and the son of former Marlins star Jeff Conine, and he became only the second father-son duo to play for Miami when he debuted in 2024. Norby is 25, was acquired from Baltimore at the 2024 trade deadline, and finished last season with seven home runs in 36 games for Miami. (mlb.com 1) (mlb.com 2) So the game turned on two long balls, but the fuller picture was a young roster answering an early mistake-filled inning with six runs in three frames and then one more insurance swing when the pressure returned. On April 8, Miami did not need a barrage; it needed one homer to grab the game and one homer to keep it. (espn.com) (mlb.com)