Miami Marlins rally against Houston Astros, set off home run statue - MiamiHerald.com

The Cardinals had the rally squirrel. The Angels had the rally monkey.

The Marlins might now have a rally creature of their own. Descending from the rafters in the top of the eighth at Marlins Park on Sunday plummeted a large bird â€" species unknown â€" that plopped on the grass about 25 feet from right fielder Giancarlo Stanton.

“I swear, it was like somebody shot it out of the air,” Stanton recalled. “Me and [center fielder Emilio Bonifacio] saw it thump, and we looked up and there was a poof of feathers. It went head first, cracked its neck."

Said Bonifacio: “It scared me.”

It seemingly awakened the Marlins, for in the bottom of the eighth (after the bird had been carefully removed by the grounds crew) Hanley Ramirez wiped out a two-run deficit with a long home run to center and came back again in the 11th to deliver the game-winning hit in a 5-4 victory over Houston.

Declared closer Heath Bell: “Rally bird!”

Chuckled Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria: “We’ll give it a funeral on Tuesday.”

Less than 24 hours after a debacle of a ninth inning led to a numbing loss to the rebuilding Astros, the Marlins flushed it out of their system with a come-from-behind win in front of 34,232.

Ramirez went 4 for 5 with a walk, drove in three runs and gave indication that the All-Star infielder is back on his game after a lousy 2011 season. He also had three hits in Saturday’s loss.

“He did a little change in his stance before the last two nights, plus he got the black hair back,” acting manager Joey Cora said.

Ramirez washed out the orange dye from his head and, with the help of hitting coach Eduardo Perez, cleaned up his swing. He said he spent 45 minutes in the indoor cages before Saturday’s game, and the results came instantly.

“I started feeling it,” Ramirez said. “It’s my hands. They were too high. So I just put them down and close to my body.”

Ramirez wasn’t the first Marlin to homer in the new ballpark. Omar Infante claimed that honor when he hit one out to left in the second inning, setting off the mechanical home run sculpture that had stood dormant through the team’s first three games there.

But Ramirez came up big when it counted Sunday.

Three innings after his home run off Wilton Lopez tied the score, his bases-loaded shot over the head of right fielder Brian Bogusevic in the 11th won it to give the Marlins their first series of the season.

Chad Gaudin was credited with the win, and no pitcher deserved it more.

With their bullpen running on fumes and short on live arms, Gaudin took over in the ninth and went three innings. Had the Marlins not won in the 11th, Cora said Gaudin would have gone back out to pitch the 12th â€" after throwing 49 pitches.

“He gutted it out,” Cora said. “He picked us up.”

Matters were so desperate for Cora from the standpoint of available relievers that he allowed Gaudin to hit for himself in the 10th even though he had the potential winning run standing on third with two outs and two pinch-hitters sitting on the bench in Austin Kearns and Brett Hayes.

Gaudin was 1 for 32 in his career as a hitter. He bounced out to second.

“It was gut-wrenching, but we had no choice,” Cora said. “He was the last man standing. If we were losing we take a chance, but it was tied and we just didn’t have anybody else available to pitch. But it worked out.”

How much longer could Gaudin have lasted ?

“I don’t know,” Gaudin said. “As long as I could have gone. I was hoping I got a hit [to win it in the 10th], but that didn’t happen.”

But the bird fell from the sky, Ramirez came through in the 11th and the Marlins could forget about Saturday’s nightmarish ending.

“Not sure what kind of bird it was,” Stanton said. “A dove maybe. It didn’t look like a dirty old pigeon. I just know I wasn’t touching it."