By ALANIS THAMES AP Sports Writer
MIAMI (AP) — Clayton McCullough breathed a sigh of relief. The Marlins finally won a game.
Miami overcame two-run, ninth-inning deficit in the ninth on Monday to beat division-rival Philadelphia 8-7 and snap a 12-game losing streak — the longest such stretch in franchise history.
It was the Marlins’ first win since beating Seattle at home on July 9 and ensured they would not suffer their fifth straight sweep.
“Everybody feels good,” McCullough said. “It’s no lie everyone in the building has been grinding hard now for a couple of weeks and frustrated with things, but certainly it feels great to get a win and I think in the fashion that we did it’d be hard to ever question this group’s toughness and willingness to compete.”
Griffin Conine singled in the winning run against Philadelphia closer Jhoan Duran, who entered in the ninth with a 7-5 lead before loading the bases with no outs.
Heriberto Hernández hit the tying single against Duran before racing home on Conine’s single and jumping into his teammates’ arms in celebration on the field.
“I’ve never been a part of anything like the last two weeks,” said Conine, who also homered in the first inning. “I think we handled it fine. It’s just like at a certain point, it’s the same way you feel when you’re 0-for-15 at the plate. You feel like you’re never going to get a hit again. And that’s not true. You know that deep down you will, but the way it feels is like — it felt like we were never going to win again.”
The Marlins had lost 11 straight games three times in their history. They lost 11 consecutive games twice during separate stretches in 1998 when the club lost 108 games, and again in June 2011.
Before Monday’s game, McCullough said he saw Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” on a recent day off and couldn’t help but think of his team’s misfortunes.
“I feel a bit like Odysseus,” he said. “Like I’m away from home for 10 years. At some point, I’m going to return home. I don’t know what baseball god I infuriated but it’s where we’re at, so today is an opportunity.”
The Marlins used that opportunity early.
After Bryce Harper put Philadelphia ahead with a two-run shot in the first, Miami responded by scoring five straight runs against ace Zack Wheeler.
After blowing the lead in the sixth, the Marlins scored three in the ninth, including Conine’s first career walk-off hit.
“As far as what this does, pressure’s off,” Conine said. “Now we’re on a winning streak. Now we want more of it. So it’s like forget the last two weeks and move on. I think we can learn from it, and I think that we will.”
The Marlins had done plenty of winning before the All-Star break and were at 52-42 and three games behind NL East-leading Atlanta. They also had the third NL wild-card spot.
But the unraveling began in the weekend home series against Cleveland prior to the break. Outside of a 7-2 to loss against San Diego on July 25, Miami had lost the other 11 games by three runs or less, including a 5-3 collapse against San Diego on Sunday.
Miami could barely generate offense during its losing streak, going .208 with a .607 OPS during that stretch. Seven players recorded a hit on Monday — six of them had multiple hits.
“Everybody is going to leave here tonight feeling much different than we have over the last 12-odd games,” McCullough said. “We’ll come in tomorrow and look — we got Game 1 of the series. As rough as it’s been, we still need to try to get back to winning series. Winning the first game of a big divisional series like this is important.”
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