MIAMI — Marlins right-hander Max Meyer earned his ninth consecutive winning decision Friday night, tying Liván Hernández (1997) and Pat Rapp (1995) for the longest single-season winning streak in franchise history while remaining the only unbeaten starter among 129 Major League pitchers with at least 10 starts this season.
Meyer cruised through six innings on just 66 pitches, striking out five and not allowing a runner to reach second base until the seventh. His 2.60 ERA ranks sixth in the National League through 17 starts.
“It’s always nice to get everything going, get the heater over, landing my offspeed,” Meyer said. “The defense [also] helped me out all day.”
The transformation has been built on a reinvented sweeper. Meyer has nearly tripled the pitch’s usage from 11.5 percent to 29 percent, and opponents’ batting average against it has plummeted from .368 to .222. Four of his five strikeouts Friday came on the sweeper, with one on his slider.
“He’s throwing breaking balls at 90 miles an hour,” manager Clayton McCullough said. “He’s got multiple ones that have different shapes. It’s tough for the hitter to know which one might have a little bit more width to it, others go straight down. He’s added a two-seam fastball, so now he can attack more quadrants of the strike zone. Certainly the sweeper has been a really big pitch for him.”
McCullough called Meyer “phenomenal” and credited his broader development. “He’s gotten better in all facets of pitching,” McCullough said. “What him and Sandy have been able to do leading our rotation this entire half — we lean on them a lot — and Max has certainly answered the bell each time out.”
The Cardinals mounted their biggest threat in the seventh after Meyer hit Iván Herrera and walked Alec Burleson before Lars Nootbaar loaded the bases. Meyer escaped the one-out jam by getting Masyn Winn to ground out and Nathan Church to line out to left.
“I mean, got to throw up another zero for the team,” Meyer said. “It’s a shutdown inning [and] it was a tough one. Moss came out, gave me a little breather there, let me settle in [before] making some big pitches… Overall, it’s a great win. Obviously, relievers came in, shut the door again, too.”
Locked in a scoreless duel into the eighth, recently recalled Graham Pauley broke through with a go-ahead RBI double down the right-field line, scoring Esteury Ruiz after he singled and stole second. Following a 27-minute rain delay in the eighth, Xavier Edwards drew a bases-loaded walk, Kyle Stowers hit a ground ball to first that resulted in a replay-overturned call scoring Pauley, and Jakob Marsee capped the scoring with a two-out, two-run single in the ninth.
“He’s electric,” Pauley said of Meyer. “We watched it all year. He’s one of, if not the best pitcher in the game right now. It’s really, really cool to see how he carries himself every day and just goes about his business.”
“It’s been a good pitch to have,” Meyer said of the sweeper. “I rely on it, obviously a lot, and I’m glad that it’s been consistent throughout the whole season.”
The victory moved Miami to four games above .500, matching its season high and marking the club’s best record this late in a season since the end of 2023. The Marlins have won seven of their last eight games and will look to extend that run as the series against St. Louis continues at loanDepot park.