Xavier

Edwards

Edwards secured one of the four thefts Miami picked up on the bases. The Marlins became the first team to have four players with 10 or more stolen bases this season. Edwards, Otto Lopez, Jakob Marsee, and Esteury Ruiz make up the quartet. The story of Edwards’ season, however, has been what he’s done as a hitter. He has career highs in bat speed, barrel rate, strikeout rate, walk rate, and nearly all of his quality-of-contact metrics.

Edwards also drew a walk. The 26-year-old combined with Otto Lopez to go 7-for-7 with four stolen bases, but the rest of the Miami lineup did nothing; a pretty common theme thus far in 2026. He’s now up to eight stolen bases while slashing .316/.396/.481. Quietly, Edwards and Lopez has been as good — if not better — than any double-play combination in the sport.

Edwards has five homers in 203 plate appearances this season after entering the year with four in 1,006 career plate appearances. It doesn’t seem like a fluke, either, as he has 10 barrels and a solid 37 percent hard-hit rate. It’s just too bad he’s cut back on the steal attempts. He’s currently 6-for-8 there. In 2024, he was 31-for-35 in 70 games, and he was 27-for-34 in 139 games last season.

Edwards, who slugged his third round-tripper of the season during Friday’s series opener, seems to be Miami’s preferred top-of-the-order option with Otto Lopez, Liam Hicks and Kyle Stowers rounding out the heart of the order. The 26-year-old’s speed makes him an interesting leadoff option and should translate into a few extra stolen base opportunities moving forward.

Edwards wasted little time putting the Marlins on the scoreboard on Friday. He got a hold of a middle-high fastball from Foster Griffin on the fifth pitch of his leadoff at-bat, and promptly discarded it 420 feet into deep left center to give the Marlins their first run of the day. Edwards’ homer would give the Marlins one of their two runs on the night, as Griffin stifled the Fish for much of the night on his way to one of his best outings of the season. Edwards continues to swing a hot bat and is slashing .318/.400/.591 in his last seven games.

It appears to be nothing more than a routine night off for the speedy 26-year-old infielder. Leo Jimenez will start in his place at second base and will bat eighth against Orioles’ southpaw Cade Povich on Thursday night in Miami.

Marsee had hit exclusively leadoff against righties and third against lefties before being dropped to fifth versus a righty tonight. Marsee has really struggled in batting .185 with one homer, but he has at least walked 21 times to produce a .305 OBP. This hurts has fantasy value some, but the leadoff spot will likely be waiting if he heats up. Edwards had been hitting cleanup of late, but is .333/.411/.465 line works everywhere.

Edwards’ homer against Andrew Painter was projected at 392 feet, making it the third longest drive of his career. He couldn’t look much like less a cleanup hitter, but he’s definitely proving worthy of the spot now while hitting .336/.426/.475 on the young season.

It’s funny to see the Marlins batting Edwards cleanup with his five career homers, but it doesn’t seem like a bad call with the way he’s consistently making harder contact this year. And while he does have just one homer so far, he already a career-high five barrels. His balls in play tonight were hit 106, 96, 94 and 93 mph.

Sure, why not. It’s probably been a few years since Edwards hit cleanup at any sort of level, but he went 1-for-2 with a pair of walks and an RBI in his first shot there on Monday evening with Kyle Stowers hitting second. The 26-year-old speedster isn’t long for the heart of the order, but the Marlins don’t exactly have a ton of alternatives unless someone like Agustín Ramírez is going to heat up.