Marlins beat Twins 5-2; Jorge Soler's home runs start and finish Miami's scoring

Stadium shadows and Jorge Soler spoiled the end of the Twins' season-opening road trip and Pablo López's return to Miami.

Soler hit two home runs as the Marlins won 5-2 Wednesday at loanDepot Park, but López, pitching against his former team for the first time since a January trade swapped him for American League batting champion Luis Arraez, allowed only three hits and one run in seven innings in his second start with his new team.

"He couldn't be more impressive," Twins manager Rocco Baldelli told reporters in Miami afterward. "I'll just say it like that."

After a 4-0 season start, the Twins lost pitcher's duels in the final two games of a three-game series vs. the Marlins that ended with the stadium's open retractable roof casting shadows across the field on a warm, tropical afternoon.

On Tuesday night, last season's Cy Young Award winner Sandy Alcantara pitched a three-hit complete-game shutout. In Wednesday's getaway matinee, Marlins pitcher Jesús Luzardo allowed one run in seven innings, but it was a four-run eighth inning with both starters gone from the game that was the difference.

Soler's homers started and capped the Marlins' scoring: a first-inning solo shot to deep left-center field and an eighth-inning line-drive bash down the left-field line.

In between, Bryan De La Cruz's RBI single drove in third baseman Jean Segura for a 2-1 lead in the eighth inning with two out.

Baldelli reconfigured Wednesday's lineup, loading it with righthanded bats against Luzardo, the first lefty the Twins faced in the season's first six games. He left Joey Gallo, nicked-up Max Kepler and Nick Gordon in the dugout and wrote seven righthanded hitters, a switch hitter and one lone lefthander on the lineup card.

That lone lefthander was Larnach. His clutch tying RBI single scored Ryan Jeffers in the seventh inning after the Twins in the sixth left the bases loaded for a seventh time this season.

Baldelli attributed the creeping shadows for the low-scoring affair until they mostly moved across the infield and outfield late in the game.

He called it "a little bit of a different day" because of the open roof for a day game.

"Pretty unusual," Baldelli said. "Usually the roof is closed the whole game. There were some serious shadows; beginning of the game especially is challenging for both teams. They were able to do more. That's credit to them.

All they managed Wednesday was that seventh-inning run and one more on a wild pitch in the ninth.

"When you can't see the ball, you end up being more aggressive," Baldelli said. "It didn't help us. We ended up expanding too much."

The Twins ultimately were outdone by that eighth inning in which relievers Griffin Jax and Caleb Thielbar were tagged for two runs allowed each after López departed. All four runs came with two outs.

The Twins flew home Wednesday and will host the World Series champion Houston Astros on Friday for their home opener.

"When you end the road trip on a lower note, that's not what you're looking for getting on the plane going home," Baldelli said. "But we had a winning road trip to start the season. …Overall, I'm pleased with what I've seen, but we're going to stay hungry and not be overly pleased. We can do some things better."