Braves 8, Marlins 3: Harris's Four Hits, Baldwin's 25th

Harris kept hitting. Miami kept answering late and not enough.

September 26, 2026 - Miami - Michael Harris II had four hits before the ninth inning was over. The roof was closed at loanDepot park. The Atlanta Braves still played this like a club tuning the bullpen for October, and they still left with an 8-3 win over the Miami Marlins.

Harris scored on Matt Olson's sacrifice fly in the first. Dominic Smith hit a two-run homer in the second, his ninth, Mike Yastrzemski scoring with him. 3-0. Harris doubled Ha-Seong Kim home in the fourth. Olson singled Harris home. 5-0, and Miami had not put a ball in the seats yet.

72 degrees inside. First pitch 4:11 p.m. Attendance 35,414. The game lasted 2 hours, 37 minutes. Atlanta had 10 hits. Miami had eight and one error.

The Braves are 94-67. They are already in. Saturday was about keeping Robert Suarez sharp and letting the lineup do the rest.

A bullpen day, and Suarez's eight-pitch seventh

Jack Ralston (the loss, 0-3) lasted 1 1/3: three hits, three earned, one walk, two strikeouts, one homer. Bradley Blalock followed with 3 1/3 and two earned. Dax Fulton took 2 2/3 and two more. The Marlins never had a starter who could slow Harris.

Atlanta did not have a conventional starter either. Brent Suter opened and threw three scoreless: one hit, no walks, three strikeouts, 43 pitches. Victor Mederos (the win, 6-1) threw two more zeros, two strikeouts, one walk. Dylan Lee threw a clean sixth.

Suarez had missed three months with right elbow discomfort. This was his second game back. He retired three straight after a leadoff triple on Wednesday, the MLB recap said. Saturday he allowed a leadoff infield chopper to Otto Lopez, lost the replay at first, then watched Heriberto Hernández triple into the left-field corner. 5-3. Eight pitches. One run. Fastball at 97.1 mph, down from his 98.7 season average.

"I feel 100 percent," Suarez said in Spanish, per MLB.com. "The only thing left to do is prepare and make a good plan for the playoffs."

Manager Walt Weiss did not overreact. "I think when you get in that postseason atmosphere, things change for everybody," he said. Suarez said he was working on pitches and that the velocity is there. Raisel Iglesias threw a clean ninth.

Sanoja's 11th, Baldwin's 25th

Javier Sanoja homered to left-center in the fourth, his 11th. 5-1. Griffin Conine singled Agustín Ramírez home later in the inning. 5-2. Hernández's triple in the seventh was Miami's last run. The Marlins are 79-82. They had Eury Pérez throw a one-hitter on Friday. They did not have that version of a pitching night on Saturday.

Harris went 4-for-5 with two doubles, three runs, and an RBI. Drake Baldwin went 3-for-5 and finished it with a two-run homer to center in the ninth, his 25th, Harris scoring again. 8-3. Smith went 1-for-3 with a walk and two RBI. Olson drove in two. Kim went 1-for-3 with a triple, a walk, and two runs. The Braves scored in the first, the second, the fourth, and the ninth. They never trailed.

Atlanta's rotation is thin. Bryce Elder, Reynaldo López, and Martín Pérez are among the starters on the injured list, the MLB recap said. Sale is still the ace. The rest of October will look like Saturday: early outs from the openers, then the bullpen, then a lineup that can turn four Harris hits into an 8-3 before anyone starts worrying about Game 1.

AthX Engine after the baseball

AthX Engine (our projection and scoring system) put Atlanta at 16 team fantasy points, tied with the Mets and Padres for fourth on Saturday. Harris had 9 hitting FP. Baldwin had 9. Smith had 7. Suter had 11 pitching FP. Mederos had 9.

Fantasy points measure the night under platform scoring rules. Share prices also move with traders through dynamic pricing. They are related. They are not the same number.

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*Sources: MLB.com schedule; MLB Gameday wrap; ESPN scoreboard; ESPN box score; AthX Engine daily scoring. Information only; not financial advice.*