Walk-off wins

It seems like every year there is at least one walk-off home run for the Marlins. It’s amazing when it happens, but it’s rare in South Florida.

Last year (2010) it was Donnie Murphy who walked off against the Colorado Rockies. This July slugfest was a classic. The game was back and forth all night. Anibal Sanchez started against Ubaldo Jimenez, and I was watching on mlb.tv. The Rockies jumped out to an early 2-0 lead, but Emilio Bonifacio got those runs back when a sharply hit ground ball took a lucky bounce off the pitching rubber into center field. The Fish took a 3-2 lead, but the Rockies got to Sanchez in the sixth. Anibal exited down 4-3, but only two of the four runs were earned. Mike Stanton stole the show in the bottom of the frame though when he launched a 3-2 pitch over the left field scoreboard for a three-run bomb. With the Marlins up 7-5 in the top of the eighth, the Rockies got two men aboard for Jonathan Herrera, who proceeded to lift his first major league home run over the right field fence. The Rocks led 8-7 going into the bottom of the ninth. The first two Marlin hitters were retired to start the inning, but after Dan Uggla walked, Donnie Murphy walked-off.

The year before (2009), Jeremy Hermida, Ross Gload, Cody Ross, and Wes Helms all provided walk-off jacks for the Fish. All these were summer month homers, one in each month June through September. Midsummer magic has been fun…

In 2008 Cody Ross hit a walk-off homer against the Reds; three days later Dan Uggla had a walk-off grand slam against Philadelphia; and the next month Josh Willingham jacked a Jon Rauch pitch out of the park to walk off against the Nats.

If you weren’t following along, between ’08 and ’10: Cody Ross (2), Dan Uggla, Josh Willingham, Jeremy Hermida, Ross Gload, Wes Helms, and Donnie Murphy all hit walk-off home runs for Florida. If you look at the Marlins’ current 40-man roster, out of that group Wes Helms is the only one still on the team.

Last night after a dramatic come from behind campaign, Mike Stanton launched one into orbit to give the Marlins a 7-6 victory…I hope his fate is not the same as most of the other walk off winners.

Worth noting:

I searched “Marlins walk off” on mlb.com, and under the video section I noticed that, excluding last night, all the games involving the Marlins and walk offs were games in which the Fish were walked off on. The last time the Marlins had walked off was on April 25th against the Dodgers.