Marlins offset 5-0 deficit, hot pitcher

MIAMI GARDENS · Alex Gonzalez's seventh-inning home run Saturday likely won't get him additional All-Star votes. What it did bring was more important to him: a Marlins victory.

A few hours after manager Jack McKeon lamented how fans weren't giving his shortstop due All-Star consideration, Gonzalez's solo blast held up for a 6-5 win over the Rangers at Dolphins Stadium.

In a performance owner Jeffrey Loria termed "vintage Marlins," they unearthed themselves from a 5-0 deficit against one of the season's hottest pitchers. Kenny Rogers brought a major-league best 1.62 ERA and eight-game winning streak into the game. He departed in the sixth having surrendered as many runs (five) as he had in his last seven games and 52 innings combined.

"We kept working it, putting some good at-bats together," said Carlos Delgado, whose two-run, fourth-inning homer represented his team's lone hit off Rogers through five innings. "This is a good win. It comes at a good time."

The timing of Gonzalez's first homer since May 1 was impeccable. He sent Juan Dominguez's 2-1 offering over the left-field wall, snapping a string of 120 at-bats without one.

Hitting .360 over his last 26 games, Gonzalez hasn't heard any complaints about a power outage. He's hit safely in all but three games since May 14.

"He's got to be in the [All-Star] voting if anybody who votes knows anything about the game," McKeon said, before his team put together back-to-back wins for the first time since May 23-24. "In my opinion, he ought to be in the top three in voting."

The Marlins began hitting like All-Stars in the sixth. Starting with leadoff man Juan Pierre, five of six batters reached on singles or doubles. Delgado made it a three-RBI game with a double to right and Mike Lowell tied it with a two-run double to left on Rogers' next offering.

Rogers legging out a triple in the top half of the inning probably didn't help his stamina. Second baseman Luis Castillo said his pitches were "barely getting [to the plate]" in the sixth and seventh.

"It's 27 outs," Gonzalez said. "We know we can score runs. We have offense. We have power. We have speed. You can't give up if you're losing 5-0."

That's how much of a cushion the Marlins spotted their opponent. Four of the runs came on one Kevin Mench swing in the second. Three of the first four batters starter Al Leiter faced reached on singles to load the bases for Mench, who sent a knee-high, 1-1 fastball into the left-field seats for his first grand slam.

"Hopefully he can help us down the road," McKeon said, of Leiter.

That grand slam, the third Leiter has served up, punctuated a 37-pitch inning for Leiter, who needed 114 deliveries to make it through 4 1/3 innings. Leiter retired the side in order in both the first and third, and nearly got out of a fourth-inning jam. Rogers beat out a bases-loaded, double-play grounder for an RBI-fielder's choice.

After the last of Leiter's four walks loaded the bases in the fifth, McKeon lifted him for Travis Smith, who needed one inside sinker to induce an inning-ending Richard Hidalgo double play.

"I was looking to do that exact thing," Smith said.

Five Marlins relievers combined to keep the Rangers scoreless over the final 4 2/3 innings. In the ninth, Todd Jones struck out Mark Teixeira, Hank Blalock, and Alfonso Soriano, who between them have 41 homers, to record his 11th save in 13 chances.

"I have to remember that if I'm going to pitch inside I can't guide it," Jones said, of facing the three mashers. "My focus has to be even sharper."

The Marlins' focus this afternoon is on a three-game sweep.

Source: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/