Major League Baseball
Miami 8, NY Mets 4
When: 7:10 PM ET, Monday, September 23, 2019
Where: Citi Field, New York City, New York
Temperature: 82°
Umpires: Home - Joe West, 1B - Jordan Baker, 2B - Jeremie Rehak, 3B - Eric Cooper
Attendance: 21189

Jorge Alfaro hit two homers Monday night, including a grand slam in the sixth inning, as the visiting Miami Marlins dealt another blow to the flickering playoff hopes of the New York Mets with an 8-4 win.

The Marlins (55-101) played spoiler for a second day in a row. Miami beat Washington on Sunday to drop the Nationals into a virtual tie with the Milwaukee Brewers for the top National League wild-card spot.

The Mets (81-75) fell five games behind the idle Brewers in the race for the second wild-card spot and 5 1/2 games behind the Nationals, who beat the Philadelphia Phillies 7-2 on Monday

Alfaro opened the scoring in the second with a leadoff homer to left against Steven Matz (10-10). Miguel Rojas extended the Marlins' lead to 2-0 with an RBI single in the third.

The Marlins opened the sixth with three straight singles off Matz. After a visit to the mound by Mets pitching coach Phil Regan, Alfaro launched a grand slam to centerfield. The two-homer game was the second of Alfaro's career, while the five RBIs are a career high.

The Mets, who stranded seven runners against Caleb Smith (10-10) in the first four innings, answered with a grand slam of their own in the bottom of the sixth when Amed Rosario homered with two outs.

But the Marlins added two insurance runs with the assist of replay in the seventh.

With the bases loaded and two outs, Harold Ramirez grounded to first. Umpire Jordan Baker initially ruled Mets pitcher Brad Brach, who fielded the throw from Pete Alonso, beat Ramirez to the bag, but the Marlins challenged and it was ruled Ramirez's foot landed on the base before Brach's foot. Curtis Granderson and Jon Berti scored on the play.

Berti finished with a career-high four hits.

Smith allowed the four runs on seven hits and four walks while striking out three over six innings.

Matz gave up six runs on nine hits and no walks while striking out three over five-plus innings.

--Field Level Media

Top Game Performances
Starting Pitchers
Miami   NY Mets
Caleb Smith Player Steven Matz
Win W/L Loss
6.0 IP 5.0
3 Strikeouts 3
7 Hits 9
6.00 ERA 10.80
Hitting
Miami   NY Mets
Jon Berti Player J.D. Davis
4 Hits 3
0 RBI 0
0 HR 0
5 TB 4
.800 Avg .600
Team Stats Summary
 
Team Hits HR TB Avg LOB K RBI BB SB Errors
Miami 13 2 20 .351 12 6 8 2 0 0
NY Mets 9 1 13 .250 22 7 4 6 0 0