As the calendar turns to September, the Miami Marlins are in the mix for a National League wild-card spot. They began the month on Tuesday night with a three-game series against the Kansas City Royals on the road.
Looking to make one final push for the third and final NL wild-card spot, the Marlins picked up a 6-3 win, inching a game closer to the San Diego Padres and within three games after the Padres were beaten by the Cincinnati Reds.
Whether or not Miami can remain in the hunt for a playoff berth and catch the Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks, who are half a game behind San Diego, is a big question. However, if they continue to get performances from unlikely sources as they did in the series opener against Kansas City, then they could make things interesting.
Graham Pauley, who has been up and down between Triple-A and the majors six times this season, was called up when the rosters expanded on Tuesday and made an immediate impact.
He drove in four of the Marlins' six runs in a key 6-3 win to open the series. After the game, second-year manager Clayton McCullough sent a message about what it is going to take for his club to remain and make a push over the final month for a postseason berth.
Miami Marlins Graham Pauley Credit: William Purnell | Imagn Images | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect
Pauley had two hits with his four RBIs, including a two-run home run in the second inning for an early 2-0 lead for starting pitcher Tyler Phillips. The lead ballooned to 6-0 before the Royals plated three runs over the final two innings against the Miami bullpen.
"This final month, and we've seen it this entire season, that's what it takes to win a lot of games," McCullough said about Pauley's performance, per Christina De Nicola of MLB.com . "You need people to step up on both sides at various times. Tonight was Graham with four RBIs for us, which was huge, and we're going to need everybody on the roster to be ready to contribute for us to make a push."
He's not wrong. Is a three-game deficit difficult to make up over the final month of the season? No, but it isn't going to be easy, as the Marlins are going to need to go on a run while getting the out-of-town results they need on almost a nightly basis. Easier said than done.
Last season, the Marlins came up short late in the season for the third and final wild-card spot, but with a month to go in 2026, if things fall right and different players step up on a nightly basis, anything is possible with the rotation the Marlins can send out and how good it's been lately.
This article was originally published on www.si.com/mlb/marlins/onsi as Marlins Manager Clayton McCullough Sends Playoff Message After Win Over Royals .
