Winners of 26 of their last 35 games, the Miami Marlins are one of the most surprising teams in baseball. But the real shock is how the Marlins are getting it done.

Exhibit A is shortstop Otto Lopez, a first-time All-Star this season who was acquired in 2024 after he was designated for assignment by the San Francisco Giants.

The Marlins, who will host the Cleveland Guardians on Saturday afternoon, have won 16 of their past 19 home games. And Lopez leads the majors with a .341 batting average.

“He hits the ball all over the place,” Marlins manager Clayton McCullough said. “If he gets two hits in a game, you’re not surprised.”

But Lopez is not the only key player the Marlins have picked up on the cheap.

Liam Hicks, who leads the team with 57 RBIs, was picked up in the Rule 5 Draft.

Javier Sanoja, who won a Gold Glove Award last year as a utility player, was signed by the Marlins in 2019 out of Venezuela for only $90,000.

Second baseman Xavier Edwards was acquired from Tampa Bay for two prospects in a steal of a deal. Edwards has an .811 OPS, and he averaged 29 steals over the previous two completed seasons.

Outfielder Kyle Stowers became a first-time All-Star last year after being acquired from Baltimore for Trevor Rogers.

On Saturday, the Marlins will start right-hander Eury Perez (5-6, 3.84 ERA), who signed with the team out of the Dominican Republic for $200,000.

Perez, who is 1-0 with a 7.20 ERA in his one career start against Cleveland, has been hot over his past five outings, going 3-0 with an 0.99 ERA.

Cleveland will turn to hard-luck right-hander Tanner Bibee (2-9, 4.06 ERA) to start Saturday’s game.

Bibee set a franchise record this year by going winless in his first 13 starts; he went 0-7 during that span. However, Bibee pitched better than that record as he had six quality starts. Since June 1, he is 2-2 with two no-decisions and four quality starts.

Bibee, victimized by poor run support and a leaky bullpen, is 1-0 with a 3.18 ERA in his only career start against the Marlins. He has never pitched in Miami.

The Guardians, who are bidding for a third straight American League Central title, are not flashy. They entered this weekend ranked last in the AL in runs, batting average, slugging percentage and OPS.

However, they rank eighth in the majors in ERA, and they ended Miami’s six-game winning streak with a 3-2 victory on Friday.

One major issue for the Guardians is the injury to third baseman Jose Ramirez (hand). Ramirez, who hasn’t played since June 13, is a six-time Silver Slugger Award winner.

The Guardians also are missing left fielder Angel Martinez (foot injury).

Those two batters have combined for 21 homers this season, and their absence is at the heart of Cleveland’s offensive woes.

The Guardians are just 9-13 without Ramirez this season, and outfielder Chase DeLauter is looking for the team to turn things around.

“Hopefully, we can take a couple of games in Miami and roll into the All-Star break,” he said. “Then we can come back fresh, ready to rock.”

–Field Level Media

Yankees right-hander Cam Schlittler looks for his 10th win of the season when New York visits the Washington Nationals in the middle game of their series on Saturday.

The Yankees have won two straight for the first time since June 23-24 thanks to Jazz Chisholm Jr.’s heroics on Friday night when he hit a two-run go-ahead homer and New York rallied past Washington 5-3.

Schlittler (9-5, 2.01 ERA) opposes right-hander Miles Mikolas (3-7, 5.78) in the middle game.

The Yankees All-Star recently followed up his worst start of the season with arguably his best. On June 30, he gave up six runs on seven hits — four of them home runs — in four innings of a loss to the Detroit Tigers. Last time out, he stifled the Tampa Bay Rays, giving up one run on four hits in eight innings. He struck out eight batters without a walk.

“It was huge. I’m not surprised he bounced back from arguably his toughest outing of his career so far against the Tigers,” manager Aaron Boone said. “He was great. He was dominant. He was efficient.”

It matched his longest start of the season, an eight-inning effort in a win against the Red Sox on April 23.

Schlittler tossed six scoreless innings to beat the Nationals last season.

Mikolas is looking to bounce back from a pair of losses in which he gave up 13 runs on 18 hits (four homers) over 13 innings. Against the Houston Astros on July 6, he allowed seven runs on nine hits in six innings. He settled in after giving up six early runs.

Washington won 12-11 making Mikolas the first Nationals pitcher (2005-present) to give up seven runs and get a win.

“It reminds you that you’re never really out of a game, even if you feel pretty bad about the first couple of innings,” he said.

On Friday night, the Nationals got back-to-back homers from Keibert Ruiz and James Wood to take a 3-2 lead in the seventh. Nationals manager Blake Butera called on left-hander Matt Krook to work the ninth against two lefties and a switch hitter for what would have been his first big-league save.

Krook got the first out, but gave up a single to Jasson Dominguez and then Chisholm’s home run into the second deck on a 1-1 sweeper.

“That was a big blow,” Boone said. “That’s not a comfortable at-bat necessarily and to hang in there and stay on that pitch and I mean absolutely destroy it was a big time at-bat.”

Dominguez and Austin Wells also homered for the Yankees.

Wood finished a triple short of the cycle and scored twice. He has 11 hits and 13 walks in his last 27 plate appearances, striking out just three times in that span. Wood has homered in three of his past four games.

Washington’s bullpen has blown a league-high 26 saves this season. In their past 16 games, they have allowed four go-ahead homers in the ninth inning.

“When you’re facing three hitters in the ninth like these guys (tonight), it doesn’t help your case at all,” Butera said. “But at the end of the day, these guys in the bullpen are going to have to get big outs for us.”

–Field Level Media

The Boston Red Sox left Citi Field on Friday night uncertain who their starting pitcher would be on Saturday.

That may be just a small hurdle to overcome for a team that’s already figured out how to win a game immediately after a nightmarish travel experience.

The surging Red Sox will look to clinch another series win Saturday afternoon when they visit the New York Mets in the middle game of a three-game interleague set.

Right-hander Freddy Peralta (5-7, 4.68 ERA) is slated to start for the Mets.

Red Sox interim manager Chad Tracy said a starting pitcher might be recalled from Triple-A Worcester on Saturday to take the rotation spot usually occupied by All-Star Ranger Suarez, who went on the 15-day injured list Thursday with a strained groin.

The Red Sox showed few effects of their laborious trek to Citi Field on Friday, when Masataka Yoshida’s two-run double in the first gave the visitors a lead they’d never relinquish in a 6-2 victory.

Sonny Gray gave up one run over six innings for the Red Sox, who capped an eventful two-day period by recording their seventh straight victory.

Boston’s flight out of Chicago following a three-game sweep of the White Sox was delayed almost 24 hours due to multiple mechanical issues on the club’s charter plane. The Red Sox didn’t land at LaGuardia Airport in New York until after 4 p.m. and didn’t make it to Citi Field until about an hour later.

The first pitch was pushed back from 7:15 to 7:51 EST to accommodate the Red Sox.

“Obviously long day-and-a-half,” Tracy said. “And they brought everything they had, which was great.”

Friday’s win improved the Red Sox to a major-league-leading 12-2 since June 25, one day after they matched a season low by falling 14 games under .500. Boston now is 1 1/2 games behind the Seattle Mariners in the race for the final American League wild-card berth.

The Red Sox were six games out of the last playoff spot through June 24, when they had the worst record in the AL.

“Crazy 24 hours,” said Red Sox second baseman Anthony Seigler, who opened Friday’s game by reaching on a two-base error by Mets left fielder Juan Soto and scored the first run before adding a two-run homer in the seventh. “But we knew we had to come in and keep the same energy that we had on this stretch.”

Brett Baty had three hits, including a homer, and scored both runs for the Mets, who went quiet offensively following one of their most prolific four-game stretches of the season. New York scored 42 runs while going 4-1 in the previous five contests.

The Mets finished 0-for-8 with runners in scoring position Friday, when they were held to two runs or less for the 35th time this season. Only the Los Angeles Angels (39) have scored two runs or less more often.

The Mets, who have the third-worst record in the National League at 40-55, had runners at the corners with none out in the eighth in a 4-1 game but didn’t score.

“I thought we put ourselves in a lot of scoring positions throughout the day,” Mets interim manager Andy Green said. “Weren’t able to cash in anything,”

Peralta didn’t factor into the decision in his most recent start Monday, when he gave up three runs (one earned) over 4 2/3 innings in the Mets’ 7-6, 10-inning win over the Atlanta Braves.

He is 0-1 with a 5.91 ERA in two career starts against the Red Sox.

-Field Level Media