BALTIMORE (AP) — Kyle Stowers admitted he didn’t have many memorable performances at Camden Yards when he first came up with the Orioles.
He made up for it Sunday with a career day against the Orioles with a three-homer game to help the Miami Marlins to an 11-1 win that capped his first series in Baltimore since he was traded last year.
Stowers had his first five-hit game and matched a career high with six RBIs to punctuate a first half of the season that earned him a place in Tuesday’s All-Star Game in Atlanta.
The 27-year-old is the fourth player in Marlins history with a three-homer game and the first since Brian Anderson did it on Sept. 18, 2020, in the second game of a doubleheader against Washington. Mike Lowell (2004) and Cody Ross (2006) also accomplished the feat.
Stowers, selected in the second round of the 2019 amateur draft by Baltimore and traded to Miami last July as part of a package to land pitcher Trevor Rogers, homered in all three plate appearances against O’s starter Brandon Young.
In his first three games back in Baltimore, Stowers was 7 for 10 with two walks.
“I wanted to play really well, not out of any form of wanting to get back at them or anything like that,” Stowers said. “It was just because we’re all competitors. I’m sure they wanted to get me.”
Stowers lofted a 1-1 pitch to right-center to lead off the second inning Sunday. The next inning, he lined a first-pitch curveball to right-center to make it 4-0.
After working a 2-2 count in the fifth, Stowers pulled a two-run shot over the scoreboard in right to extend the lead to 7-0.
It is Stowers’ fourth multi-homer game this season.
“I don’t want to say I’m actively trying to hit a home run every single at-bat, but I want to hit the ball hard in the air,” Stowers said. “And if I hit the ball hard in the air, I know I have a chance to drive the ball.”
Stowers, who is hitting .293 with 19 homers and 54 RBIs at the break, had two chances to become the 20th player in major league history with a four-homer day. He singled with one out in the seventh and added an RBI single in the eighth.
“Two, that’s a big day,” Miami manager Clayton McCullough said. “The third one, there haven’t been very many guys that have a chance to get four. That’s already at that point a remarkable game. To come back and hit another bullet for a fifth hit, all while taking in the type of half Kyle has had, staff and teammates included couldn’t be happier for it to happen to a guy like Kyle.”
Stowers is the first player in franchise history with five hits, four runs, three homers and six RBIs in a game, and the first player in the majors to post that line since the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani did it on Sept. 19 against Miami.
Nonetheless, his first three plate appearances set a high bar for the rest of the day --- one the Marlins were happy to remind him of after his last two trips.
“I don’t think I’ll ever forget my teammates booing me as I’m coming back in the dugout from my fourth and fifth at-bats because I only hit a single,” Stowers said. “That was pretty funny.”
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Patrick Stevens, The Associated Press
