October 4, 2003: Marlins advance to NLCS as Iván Rodríguez holds on in game-ending collision at home plate

Playoff baseball in the wild-card era is unpredictable. Teams that dominate during the summer routinely get ousted early in October by teams with less impressive regular-season records. Perhaps no franchise has benefited from expanded playoffs more than the Miami Marlins. Since they entered the National League as an expansion team in 1993, when they were known as the Florida Marlins, the Marlins have won two World Series titles without ever winning their division.1

After winning their first title in 1997, the Marlins traded away many of the players who led them to October glory. After five consecutive losing seasons, the Marlins limped to a 19-29 start in 2003. But buoyed by the addition of two impact rookies – starting pitcher Dontrelle Willis and third baseman-outfielder Miguel Cabrera – and by a midseason managerial change, the Marlins surged in the second half of 2003 to finish with 91 wins and claim the NL wild card.2

They opened their second-ever postseason appearance with a best-of-five Division Series against the reigning NL champion San Francisco Giants. The ’03 Giants had won 100 games and were led by Barry Bonds, the best player in baseball, who was in the midst of an astounding stretch from 2001 to 2004 during which he won four consecutive NL MVP crowns.3 In 1997 the Marlins had begun their drive to the World Series with a Division Series sweep of the Giants.

San Francisco opened the 2003 rematch with a victory at Pac Bell Park behind ace Jason Schmidt’s three-hit shutout. The Marlins took Game Two, 9-5, coming back from an early 4-1 deficit. The series shifted to South Florida for Games Three and Four. In Game Three, Marlins star catcher Iván Rodríguez drove in all four runs for the Marlins, including a two-run walk-off single in the bottom of the 11th that gave Florida a 4-3 victory.

Less than 24 hours after Rodríguez’s game-winner, the teams met for Game Four on a muggy and sunny Saturday afternoon at Pro Player Stadium. The starting pitchers were two 21-year-old rookies: the Marlins’ Willis and the Giants’ Jerome Williams.4 Willis, a charismatic lefty nicknamed “D-Train” who featured a high leg kick, finished the regular season 14-6 with a 3.30 ERA and won the NL’s Rookie of the Year Award. Williams, a right-hander born in Honolulu, also had a strong debut season, going 7-5 and matching Willis with a 3.30 ERA.5

After both teams stranded baserunners in the first, the Giants opened the scoring in the second. Center fielder Marquis Grissom walked and went to third on a single to left-center by first baseman J.T. Snow. Light-hitting catcher Yorvit Torrealba hit a fly ball to left that scored Grissom and gave San Francisco an early 1-0 lead.

The lead did not last long. The 20-year-old Cabrera – who had hit a walk-off homer in his first big-league game on June 20 – led off the Marlins’ second with a double and took third on Juan Encarnación’s sacrifice. With the infield in, left fielder Jeff Conine hit a groundball that Giants shortstop Rich Aurilia bobbled. Cabrera scored to tie the game, and Conine reached first on the error. After shortstop Álex González popped up for the second out, Willis singled to advance Conine to second. But the scoring threat ended when Giants third baseman Edgardo Alfonzo made a leaping grab that robbed Marlins leadoff man Juan Pierre of a hit.

The Marlins added on in the third and fourth innings. Williams walked speedy second baseman Luis Castillo to open the third. Castillo scored on Rodríguez’s double to center, and Rodríguez himself scored on first baseman Derrek Lee’s single. Giants skipper Felipe Alou relieved Williams with Jim Brower. Escaping the third without yielding another run, Brower gave up a two-run double to Cabrera in the fourth that gave Florida a 5-1 lead.

After not allowing a baserunner in the third inning through the fifth, Willis gave up four hits to the five batters he faced in the sixth – retiring only Bonds on a sacrifice fly – and allowed three runs. Willis’s struggles prompted Marlins skipper Jack McKeon to call upon Brad Penny.6 Penny entered with the score 5-4 and Alfonzo on second. After retiring Grissom for the second out, Penny gave up a single to Snow that scored Alfonzo and knotted the game, 5-5.

The game remained tied until the bottom of the eighth. With two outs, Iván Rodríguez singled to left and Lee was hit by an offering from Giants reliever Felix Rodríguez. That brought up Cabrera, who hit Felix Rodríguez’s first pitch to right.7 Right fielder José Cruz Jr. grabbed the ball and threw a two-hopper to catcher Torrealba. Charging around third, Iván Rodríguez collided with Torrealba at the plate. Torrealba never controlled the ball and it squirted loose. Lee hurried home to give the Marlins a 7-5 lead. The sellout crowd of 65,464 at Pro Player Stadium was rocking, with Florida on the precipice of advancing.

In the ninth McKeon called on his closer, Ugueth Urbina, to end the Giants’ season. Urbina, acquired in midseason from the Texas Rangers, had dominated during his time in South Florida, posting a 1.38 ERA (good for a 301 ERA+) in 38⅓ innings. But he quickly ran into trouble when the Giants’ Neifi Pérez led off with a double into the right-field corner. One pitch later, Snow singled to right to score Pérez and make it a one-run game. Urbina settled down, striking out pinch-hitter Pedro Feliz and inducing a fly ball off the bat of another pinch-hitter, Benito Santiago.

Needing only more out to secure the victory, Urbina hit Ray Durham, moving Snow into scoring position. Next up was outfielder Jeffrey Hammonds. Hammonds, an All-Star in 2000 who signed with the Giants in midseason after being released by the Milwaukee Brewers, had posted a solid .277/.370/.479 slash line with the Giants. He attacked Urbina’s first-pitch breaking ball and blooped a hit to left field.

Conine, the only member of the ’03 Marlins who had also played on the ’97 team, grabbed the ball and threw a one-hopper into the glove of Ivan Rodríguez. Trying to tie the game, the slow-footed Snow rounded third and barreled into Rodríguez in front of the plate. Rodríguez tumbled back but held on to the ball and tagged Snow for the final out. The Marlins had eliminated the Giants. Urbina tackled Rodríguez as the other Marlins piled on top. Rodríguez pulled out his arm from beneath the pile to show he had held on to the ball. “I got the ball in the glove, and wasn’t getting rid of it,” said the future Hall of Fame catcher.8

For the second time in their brief history, it seemed as if baseball gods were smiling upon the Marlins. “We’re not going to try to figure it out,” said Pierre. “We’re just going to enjoy the ride.”9 The 72-year-old McKeon explained the Marlins’ triumph more simply, saying “[w]e held the ball; they didn’t. It’s a matter of winning or losing the game.”10

There was no jubilation in the Giants’ locker room. Snow had little to say, telling the media he would let them “do all the analyzing,” while Aurilia termed the season a failure despite the Giants’ 100 wins.11 Putting his frustrations aside, Giants owner Peter Magowan credited the Marlins: “[They] played a little bit better than us in every aspect. They got the two-out hits, and they hit with runners in scoring position.”12 Bonds did not speak to the media after the loss, only telling reporters he would see them in spring training.13 It turned out to be Bonds’ final career playoff game, as the Giants did not make the playoffs during his four remaining seasons in the Bay Area. In his final postseason series, Bonds went 2-for-9 with eight walks (six intentional) and no home runs.

The next day, Florida learned it would be playing the Chicago Cubs for the National League pennant. After falling behind Chicago three games to one, the Marlins rallied to win the pennant in a series marred by the Steve Bartman incident in Game Six. They then beat the 101-win New York Yankees in six games, despite being outscored in the series, for the franchise’s second championship. The modern postseason had produced another unlikely champion, as the 2003 Marlins became the third team to win the World Series as a wild card.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Mike Huber and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: Trading Card Database.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for pertinent information, including the box score and play-by-play.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/FLO/FLO200310040.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2003/B10040FLO2003.htm

Notes

1 Through the end of the 2023 season, the Marlins have never won their division.

2 The Marlins finished 10 games behind the NL East champion Atlanta Braves. Between 1995 and 2011, only one team in each league qualified for the wild-card spot each year.

3 Up three games to two against the Anaheim Angels in the 2002 fall classic, the Giants blew a 5-0 lead in Game Six and lost Game Seven.

4 Alou could have started Schmidt on three days’ rest but elected not to. Alou said Schmidt was unavailable but Schmidt told reporters, “That’s not exactly what happened.” Jeff Shain and Kevin Baxter, “Schmidt Sits, Accounts Vary,” Miami Herald, October 5, 2003: 19D.

5 Willis started 27 games and posted a 127 ERA+; Williams started 21 games and posted a 121 ERA+.

6 Penny, who had started Game Two three days earlier, made his first relief appearance since July 2000.

7 Cabrera, who went 0-for-9 in the first three games, was the Marlins’ hitting star in Game Four, going 4-for-5 with two doubles and three RBIs. The run Lee scored in the eighth was unearned; if it had been earned, Cabrera would have had four RBIs.

8 Clark Spencer, “Florida Advances to Face Braves or Cubs in NLCS,” Miami Herald, October 5, 2003: 1D-2D.

9 Scott Brown, “Marlins Knock Off Giants,” Florida Today (Cocoa, Florida), October 5, 2003: 2D.

10 Spencer.

11 Nick Peters, “Rodriguez Leads the Charge as Florida Outmuscles Giants,” Sacramento Bee, October 5, 2003: C6.

12 Nick Peters, “Giants’ Owner, GM Give the Marlins Their Due,” Sacramento Bee, October 5, 2003: C6.

13 Barry Jackson, “More Wild-Card teams?” Miami Herald, October 5, 2003: 2D; Mark Long, “Bonds Is Left Without a Ring Again,” Modesto (California) Bee, October 5, 2003: C4.