Fish Crush Brewers

Marlins top Milwaukee 13-5

Once the Florida Marlins started hitting again, everyone in their dugout seemed relieved.

Cody Ross hit a three-run home run to spark Florida's biggest inning of the season, Cameron Maybin hit an inside-the-park homer to help turn the game into a rout and the Marlins erased an early four-run deficit to beat the Milwaukee Brewers 13-5 on Monday.

Chris Coghlan led off what became a seven-run sixth with a single, then added a two-run triple 20 minutes later for the Marlins, who scored four more in the seventh -- the last two coming on Maybin's line drive to center that he beat without even sliding at the plate, crossing with both arms raised.

"Funny how this game works," Ross said. "For the first five innings or whatever it was, it looked like the same old team that's been playing the last few days. And then all of a sudden, we score seven. That's what makes our game so beautiful. You can be down and out, and the next thing you know, you feel like you're on top of the world and nobody can get you out. It's mindboggling."

Entering the sixth inning, the Marlins were in a 15-for-109 skid.

They went 12 for 20 the rest of the way.

"It was pretty much an avalanche," Brewers manager Ken Macha said.

Ross finished with four RBIs, the second time he's done that this season. Jorge Cantu drove in three runs, while Ronny Paulino and Coghlan each finished with three hits for Florida, which matched a season-high with 13 runs.

"I think that's what our lineup is capable of doing," Coghlan said.

Corey Hart hit his 13th homer and finished with two RBIs for Milwaukee, which led 4-0 after 51/2 innings. Rickie Weeks had two RBIs and Ryan Braun hit a RBI double for the Brewers.

"The game starts to get away from you a lot of things look ugly," Macha said.

Marlins starter Nate Robertson gave up eight hits and four runs in 5 1-3 innings. Jorge Sosa (1-0) got the win in relief, retiring the last two batters of the sixth.

In the sixth, either Florida's bats decided to awaken, Milwaukee starter Chris Narveson (4-3) wilted in the 89-degree heat -- or both.

Coghlan led off with a single, scored three batters later on Cantu's groundout, then Ross snapped an 0-for-11 drought with his fifth homer of the year.

"It drifted up," Narveson said. "He was obviously looking up there and ended up getting a pitch he can drive. It's tough because that was the turning point in the game."

The Marlins sent 11 batters to the plate in the inning, taking their first lead on a pinch-hit single by Mike Lamb, then going up 7-4 when Coghlan's triple to right rolled to the wall, allowing Lamb and Maybin to score.

Without warning, Florida was rolling.

Everything worked: Dan Uggla even scored from first on a double by Ross in the seventh, narrowly beating George Kottaras' tag for an 8-4 lead. The Brewers thought Uggla missed the plate.

"It kind of turned the game around," Kottaras said.

Narveson was chased after getting charged with five earned runs, and the Brewers' bullpen wasn't much better, Carlos Villanueva and Marco Estrada giving up a combined five hits and six runs in 1 1-3 innings. Estrada gave up Maybin's inside-the-parker, a line drive that got past center fielder Carlos Gomez.

Rounding first, Maybin said base coach Dave Collins was yelling "Four! Four! Four!" -- and sure enough, he touched all four bases. "It was pretty exciting," Maybin said.
 

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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