Early offense, Jesús Luzardo highlight Phillies’ win over Marlins

A six-run first inning and a second straight strong start by Jesús Luzardo helped the Phillies beat the Marlins, 7-2, on Sunday in Miami.

Bryson Stott’s second home run of the season capped off the scoring in the top of the first for the Phillies, who were one-hit by Max Meyer and the Marlins on Saturday. Meanwhile, Luzardo, coming off a seven-shutout-inning start last week against the Giants, racked up 10 strikeouts in 6 1/3 innings of two-run ball.

Stott was the seventh of nine batters to step into the batter’s box in the top of the first, and he sent a 2-2 cutter from Marlins starting pitcher Chris Paddack just over the right-center field wall for a three-run homer. It was Stott’s second three-run home run of the series and gave his team a 6-0 lead.

Alec Bohm, Brandon Marsh and J.T. Realmuto were also rewarded with RBIs in the first inning. Bohm’s RBI came on a fielder’s choice. Marsh followed with a bases-loaded walk. And Realmuto hit sacrifice fly before Stott gave the Phillies their comfortable lead.

Altogether, the Phillies saw 38 pitches in the first from Paddack, who gave up seven runs on six hits with three walks; all three walks were in the first. Justin Crawford’s RBI single in the third inning was the seventh run charged to Paddack.

Luzardo followed the Phillies’ offense with a four-batter, two-strikeout bottom of the first. He went on to stifle the Marlins for most of the afternoon.

While Luzardo allowed more hits (eight) this time around than he did against the Giants (two), his 10 strikeouts on Sunday were two more than his last time out. More importantly, he did not allow a walk for the second straight game. The two runs he gave up came on a two-run homer by Esteury Ruiz in the bottom of the seventh inning. Luzardo’s ERA is down to 5.09; it was 6.91 before his outing against the Giants.

Luzardo relied heavily on his sweeper, four-seam fastball and changeup; they made up 98 of the 102 pitches he fired. He induced a 50 percent whiff rate on his sweeper and a 47 percent whiff rate on his changeup.

The Phillies will try to win their second straight series on Monday when they conclude their wrap-around set against Marlins. First pitch is scheduled for 6:40 p.m. ET. Aaron Nola (1-3, 6.03 ERA) is scheduled to start for the Phillies and Janson Junk (2-2, 3.00 ERA) is scheduled to start for the Marlins.