Junk Silences the Cardinals, Sanoja Goes 3-for-4, and the Marlins Take the Rubber Game 4-1.

A red glove in the bullpen, an E5 in the second inning, a 3 up 3 down opener, and Janson Junk pitching the game of his life on 56 pitches against a Cardinals team that came in 14-9. Three games. One series. The Marlins take it.

April 22, 2026  ·  By Wilson Alvarez  ·  Series Recap · Business of Baseball · MiamiBusiness.com

GAME 1 · MONDAY APRIL 20 · MIA 5-3 · WIN
Meyer Strikes Out Eight and the Bullpen Does the Rest

The Cardinals came in at 14-8, playing winning baseball, bringing Dustin May — who would start Game 2 with a 1.69 ERA — and a lineup that had been scoring runs consistently. Max Meyer answered the matchup with the best strikeout performance of his young career: 5.1 innings, 8 strikeouts, only 2 earned runs on 91 pitches. Eight strikeouts against a lineup that comes in above .500 is not an accident. That is a young pitcher asserting himself in a game that mattered.

The offense spread runs across four innings — the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 8th. Liam Hicks drove in two. Agustín Ramírez hit a home run. Otto Lopez doubled, scored twice, and drove in a run. Xavier Edwards doubled and drove in a run. Kyle Stowers scored twice. The Marlins did not need one big inning. They nibbled the Cardinals to death across the entire lineup. Andrew Nardi, Anthony Bender, Calvin Faucher (WIN), and Pete Fairbanks (SAVE) combined to strand any Cardinals momentum after Meyer left. Final: 5-3 Marlins. Series lead 1-0.

GAME 2 · TUESDAY APRIL 21 · STL 5-3 · LOSS
Paddack Gets Tagged Again and Marsee Earns the Honor in a Losing Cause

The fifth starter problem did not go away on Tuesday. Chris Paddack gave up 5 runs on 8 hits in 4.2 innings, the same pattern that cost the Marlins in the White Sox series opener. Dustin May, the Cardinals starter, was the counter-argument: 5.1 innings, 6 hits, only 1 earned run, efficient and composed. The matchup was not close. St. Louis took a series-tying win 5-3 and the rubber game was set.

The one bright line in a difficult night was Jakob Marsee. The centerfielder went 3-for-5 with a home run and 1 RBI, the only Marlin who produced consistently from first at-bat to last. He earned the Tres “0” Five Hits Honor in a game his team lost, which says something about character: you keep working even when the score is against you. Tyler Phillips (3 IP, 0 ER) and John King (1.1 IP, 0 ER) kept the bullpen clean and kept the deficit manageable. Heriberto Hernández drove in 2 late to at least make it respectable. Series tied 1-1. Wednesday would decide everything.

GAME 3 · WEDNESDAY APRIL 22 · MIA 4-1 · WIN · RUBBER GAME
Junk Delivers 5 Shutout Innings on 56 Pitches and the Marlins Take the Series

From the press box on the sixth floor of loanDepot park on a sealed Wednesday afternoon, this is what it looked like: the first pitch of the game to the Cardinals was a popup to left field. Three up, three down in the first inning. Junk was sharp from the first motion. He worked efficiently, he worked ahead in counts, and he gave the Marlins exactly what a fifth starter is supposed to give in a rubber game: length, command, and a zero in the run column. An error in the second inning — E5 at third base — gave the Cardinals a moment of life. Junk answered with outs. That is what pitchers who want to stay in a major league rotation do.

The Marlins scored two in the second, one in the fourth, and one in the fifth. Twelve hits across the lineup, every single one of them meaningful in the context of a series that had been tied for 24 hours. Javier Sanoja went 3-for-4. Jakob Marsee drove in two more runs, adding to his Game 2 Tres “0” Five performance. Agustín Ramírez drove in a run. Owen Caissie drove in a run. The entire lineup contributed. After Junk departed, Andrew Nardi, Anthony Bender, and Michael Petersen (3 strikeouts in one inning) bridged to Pete Fairbanks, who closed it for his second save of the series. Lake Bachar allowed a solo home run in the ninth — the only Cardinals run — but the margin was comfortable and the series was already decided. Final: 4-1 Marlins. Series won 2-1.

THE BIG PICTURE
What Beating a 14-9 Cardinals Team Actually Means for the 2026 Marlins

Janson Junk believed in himself on Wednesday. You could see it from the press box in the very first pitch of the game — a popup to left field, the Cardinals out before the crowd had settled into their seats, the roof sealed against the rain outside, and a pitcher with 56 pitches left to throw who threw every single one of them like the series depended on it. Because it did.

The Marlins at 12-13 are not a dominant team right now. They are five games behind Atlanta in the NL East. They have a fifth starter problem that Tuesday exposed again. But this series says something important about who they are: when the Cardinals showed up at 14-9 and took Game 2, the Marlins did not fold. They came back Wednesday with 12 hits and five shutout innings from the last man in the rotation and they took the series. That is the character of a team that is building something real. The road to San Francisco starts now, and the 305 is going west with momentum.

Follow the full 2026 Marlins season at MiamiBusiness.com. Reach Wilson Alvarez directly at 305-386-6165 or info@miamibusiness.com. The game is always bigger than the score. In Miami, the story is always worth telling.