Takeaways as Burger and Jazz home runs lead Marlins to series-clinching win vs Braves

Jake Burger hit a go-ahead two-run home run in the eighth inning and Jazz Chisholm Jr. followed with a grand slam to lift the Miami Marlins to an 11-5, series-clinching win over the Atlanta Braves on Saturday at loanDepot park.

The Marlins improve to 77-72 on the season and became the first National League East team to win a series against the Braves (96-52) this season. Atlanta, which won the division for a sixth consecutive season and has the best record in MLB, entered the weekend having gone 11-0-1 in series against divisional opponents and won nine of its first 10 games against Miami before dropping games Friday and Saturday.

“This is just confirmation that they can play with some of the best in the league,” Marlins manager Skip Schumaker said. “This team has handled us all year — and handled the league all year, honestly. We knew that it’s not like we were going to shut them out. We had to fight back and keep punching whenever they scored.”

Burger’s home run, his 32nd of the season and seventh since being acquired by the Marlins at the Aug. 1 MLB trade deadline, came on a middle-away fastball from Braves reliever Kirby Yates with two outs. He lifted it 411 feet to straightaway center field.

“There was a lot of emotion there,” Burger said. “The fans and the crowd noise and the electricity in the stands, me and Jazz were just talking about how we were feeding off that adrenaline. When I hit it, I didn’t think that it was gonna go out. In my head I’m like, ‘Dang, get on your horse, get going.’ We needed that run. And then it went out and I kind of blacked out there for a little bit.”

But Miami wasn’t done there.

The Marlins loaded the bases on a Yuli Gurriel infield single and walks to Jesus Sanchez and Garrett Hampson before Chisholm sent a middle-down sinker from Michael Tonkin 424 feet to center field for Miami’s first grand slam of the season.

Before Burger’s heroics and Chisholm’s exclamation mark on the game, the Marlins erased an 3-0 deficit by scoring four runs in the bottom of the first on home runs from Luis Arraez and Gurriel.

Arraez, who finished with three hits on Saturday hit a leadoff home run for the second consecutive game and third time this week. Arraez is just the third player in Marlins history to hit leadoff home runs in back-to-back games, joining Miguel Rojas (July 27-28, 2019) and Hanley Ramirez (July 17-18, 2006). His four leadoff home runs overall this season are the fourth most in a season in Marlins history. Ramirez holds the top three spots (seven in 2006, eight in 2007, nine in 2008).

Gurriel’s home run was his fourth of the season and first since May 7.

Garrett Hampson added an RBI single in the fifth to push Miami’s lead to 5-3 before Atlanta rallied to tie the game and force the Marlins to come up with another late, clutch hit.

Burger provided just that and Chisholm provided insurance for good measure.

Here are three takeaways from the game.

Chisholm’s big game

In addition to the grand slam, the second of his career, Chisholm also had an infield single, two walks and a career-high three stolen bases.

Chisholm on Saturday became the second player in the Live Ball Era (since 1920) to hit a grand slam and steal three bases in a game, joining Seattle’s Mike Cameron on May 16, 2002.

Chisholm, who has dealt with an assortment of injuries this season, now has 17 home runs and 22 stolen bases in 85 games played.

“We know the kind of talent he has,” Schumaker said. “It’s now ‘Are you a winning player?’ There’s a big difference. ... Our coaching staff is not going to stop until we have him become a winning type of player and him learning different things to become a winning player. He’s showing that. He’s showing what a winning player looks like.”

Bryan Hoeing settles in

As rough as his outing began on Saturday — and it was rough — right-handed pitcher Bryan Hoeing settled in to provide the Marlins with 4 1/3 innings against arguably MLB’s best lineups (albeit one without Ronald Acuna Jr., who did not play Saturday after having calf tightness on Friday).

Hoeing gave up extra-base hits to the first three batters he faced — a double to Michael Harris II and then back-to-back home runs to Ozzie Albies and Austin Riley — to put Miami in a 3-0 hole.

But after a walk to Matt Olson, Hoeing retired 13 of the final 14 batters he faced, allowing only a two-out single to Olson in the third inning in that span.

Considering Miami used five relievers in its 9-6 win on Friday to begin the series, the Marlins needed length out of Hoeing on Saturday regardless of the result.

He managed to do more than enough to keep them in the game, although the Braves tied the game after Hoeing left by hitting a pair of solo home runs against Steven Okert. Harris cut Atlanta’s deficit to 5-4 in the fifth before Olson hit his 52nd home run of the season — a new Braves single-season franchise record — to lead off the sixth.

George Soriano, Andrew Nardi and Tanner Scott followed with four shutout innings to give the offense a chance to rally.

Scott entered with two outs in the top of the eighth and the bases loaded. He needed just one pitch to get out of the jam, with Orlando Arcia hitting into an inning-ending groundout, before shutting the door in the ninth.

Where things stand in the playoff race

With the win, the Marlins will at worst remain just a half-game back of the National League’s third and final wild card spot with 13 regular-season games left to play.

Exactly where they’ll stand at the end of the day Saturday will be determined by the results of the Cincinnati Reds-New York Mets and Chicago Cubs-Arizona Diamondbacks games. The Reds and Diamondbacks entered Saturday tied for the third wild card spot.