Miami 2, NY Yankees 1
When: 7:10 PM ET, Monday, June 15, 2015
Where: Marlins Park, Miami, Florida
Temperature:
Indoors
Umpires:
Home -
CB Bucknor, 1B -
Gabe Morales, 2B -
Dale Scott, 3B -
Lance Barrett
Attendance:
33961
By The Sports Xchange
MIAMI -- Tom Koehler hurt the team he used to love.
Koehler, a native of the Bronx, pitched seven strong innings, and Derek Dietrich hit a tiebreaking solo home run in the seventh, leading the Miami Marlins to a 2-1 win over the New York Yankees on Monday night at Marlins Park.
The game was played before 33,961 fans, the Marlins' largest home crowd since they had 36,969 on Opening Day. Monday's crowd was almost evenly split between Marlins fans and Yankees supporters.
"I thought that since this was a different Yankees team than the one I grew up watching that the adrenaline and the nerves wouldn't be there – but they were," said Koehler, who faced the Yankees for the first time in his career.
"The crowd was going back and forth – 'Let's Go Marlins!' 'Let's Go Yankees!' After a while, you just hear loud noises."
Koehler (5-4) said he grew up eight miles from Yankee Stadium. His father, Koehler said, grew up across the street from the Stadium.
"He was a New York cop, and he worked a lot of ticket-scalping detail," Koehler said. "He got to see pretty much every playoff game for that stretch they were on."
Monday's game wasn't a playoff battle, but it had that feel of a special event.
Even events happening off the field on this night were major as was the case in the second inning, when the Marlins announced that right-hander Jose Fernandez will return from elbow surgery on July 2 in a home game against the San Francisco Giants.
The return of Fernandez, the 2013 NL Rookie of the Year, is big news for Miami (28-37), which has won four of its past five games.
New York (34-29), meanwhile, has lost four of its past five.
Dietrich, who was promoted from Triple-A on Friday to serve as a utility infielder, started at third base in place of the injured Martin Prado. Dietrich doubled and scored Miami's first run and then pulled his home run to right on a 2-0 pitch.
"I was jazzed up after that (homer)," said Dietrich, who started his first major league game of the year. "I was telling the guys that I'm going to be really tired tonight. My emotions were really high. I'm sure they're going to come down soon when I hit the pillow."
Koehler, who allowed just three hits, two walks and one run in seven innings, is 3-1 with a 1.52 ERA in seven home starts this season.
Closer A.J. Ramos earned his ninth save, pitching a scoreless ninth, including two strikeouts. Ramos' final out came against pinch hitter Alex Rodriguez, the former Miami Westminster Christian star who is five hits away from 3,000.
Rodriguez hit a flyout to right with a runner on first to end the game.
"It was an awesome situation to be in -- fun, exciting," Rodriguez said of his pinch-hitting role. "(Manager Joe Girardi) couldn't have played it any better. I was ready to go.
"I didn't know the pitcher (Ramos), but he hung a slider. I just popped it straight up."
Yankees starter Masahiro Tanaka (4-2) allowed nine hits, no walks and two runs in seven innings.
There was a noteworthy moment in the bottom of the first inning, when Tanaka faced fellow Japan native Ichiro Suzuki for the first time. Suzuki, 41, lined a single to right off the 26-year-old Tanaka. Suzuki finished the game 2-for-3 against Tanaka.
The Yankees opened the scoring in the second on a solo home run to right-center by first baseman Mark Teixeira. It was his 18th homer of the season.
Miami pulled even in the bottom of the second as Dietrich doubled and scored on a one-out single by shortstop Adeiny Hechavarria.
In the fifth, the Yankees worked around an error by Teixeira, who failed to field a grounder that had heavy spin. The error was his second in four days. Before that, he had not made an error in 109 games, the second-longest streak by a Yankees first baseman.
Offensively, the Yan
Top Game Performances
Team Stats Summary
Team |
Hits |
HR |
TB |
Avg |
LOB |
K |
RBI |
BB |
SB |
Errors |
NY Yankees
|
3 |
1 |
7 |
.100 |
10 |
10 |
1 |
3 |
0 |
1 |
Miami
|
10 |
1 |
15 |
.303 |
21 |
8 |
2 |
1 |
0 |
0 |