Marlins’ Stanton Homers in Loss to Rays

The Miami Marlins fell to the Tampa Bay Rays 4-3 on Tuesday in a game that featured a Giancarlo Stanton home run.

The blast from Stanton was a tremendously positive moment for Miami, even though it came in a game that resulted in a loss. The slugger has struggled nearly all month long and has been striking out at a record pace. The HR for Stanton was only his fourth in the month, and his first in nearly two weeks.

Stanton now has 12 home runs this season to go along with a dismal .214 batting average. Even though Stanton did add another strikeout to his totals in this one, he has taken better swings. Stanton has shown flashes of ending his slump and the HR could be a sign of things to come this week.

The Marlins and Rays are in the middle of a four-game Citrus Series split between Miami and St. Petersburg. The teams split the Miami games and will now head North to complete the annual tradition. In the games at Tropicana Field, Miami will have a designated hitter which could end up meaning more playing time for Ichiro Suzuki.

Suzuki who entered this one with ten hits in three games, went 0-5 in the loss. The veteran had been 12 for his last 16 overall and has been filling in for Christian Yelich.

Marcell Ozuna continued to pad his stats with another two doubles in the loss. Ozuna now has nine two-base hits this year and has his batting average all the way up to .327.

The loss in this one was charged to Tom Koehler who started for Miami. Koehler went five innings and allowed three runs on six hits. Koehler fell to 2-5 on the season with the loss.