Stowers named to the National League All-Star team as a reserve

Miami Herald

06-07-2025

Kyle Stowers is heading to the Midsummer Classic.
The Miami Marlins' left fielder was named to his first MLB All-Star Game on Sunday and, barring any roster changes, will be the club's lone representative when the showcase is played July 15 in Atlanta.
Stowers, 27, found out in a pregame meeting in the clubhouse.
'It's pretty surreal, to be honest,' Stowers said. 'It's something that certainly is on the career bucket list to experience. It's not my mountaintop, per se, but it's something that I definitely wanted to accomplish.'
'The reaction from his teammates said a lot,' said Marlins' manager Clayton McCullough. 'Everyone was ecstatic for Kyle, and he's earned that with his performance. But I think also he's earned a lot of respect from his teammates for the way in which he carries himself and how he handles the good and the bad.'
Stowers' production made him the Marlins' likely All-Star choice.
He entered Sunday's series finale against the Brewers batting .283 and leading the team's qualifiers in slugging (.519), OPS (.879), home runs (16), extra-base hits (32), RBI (46) and total bases (147).
He had five homers in nine games since June 26, tied for second most in the majors during that span, while slashing 355/.429/.903 with a 1.332 OPS.
And, of course, there were the two unforgettable walk-offs in the first half of this season — an RBI single to beat the Pirates on Opening Day and a walk-off grand slam against A's flamethrower Mason Miller on May 3, one of only six in franchise history, that snapped a six-game skid.
But it hasn't all been smooth.
Stowers weathered a 31-game homerless drought and endured a brutal 2-for-30 stretch at the plate from May 24 to June 1.
'He deserves the credit,' McCullough said. 'It's easy to say, 'Well, guys, go make adjustments, and the league will show you.' But it's another thing to be willing to be open to be like, 'OK, I've got to make some real wholesale changes and swing adjustments,' and take what slapped you in the face and push back on it. That shows a lot about Kyle's character.
'[Dodgers manager] Dave Roberts has said this a lot: 'The game has a way of rewarding you.' Kyle is one of those, the way he's been rewarded for his stick-to-it-iveness and his openness to getting better. There was a little bit of a dip, and his resiliency shows that this [success] was not a fluky stretch of games.'
Said Stowers: 'I'm so grateful to do what I do, but there's a lot of challenges, too, and I care a lot, and so when things weren't going well, it's really hard, and it just makes moments like this that much more special.'
Stowers, acquired from the Orioles alongside third baseman Connor Norby in a trade last July 30, reflected Sunday on his early days in Miami.
'I obviously didn't play the baseball that I would have liked to last year,' he said. 'But that being said, within the struggles there's just so many learning opportunities. And honestly, playing so poorly for a stretch of time forced me to kind of lower my expectations, to lower the bar and take one step at a time.'
Stowers shared a story from near the end of spring training, when he was 'playing pretty poorly, and I was actually kind of nervous about not making the team'— a notion that seems silly now considering Sunday's news.
'We hadn't booked our living [arrangements] for the season yet,' Stowers said of himself and his wife, Emma. [Assistant hitting coach Derek Shomon] called me before the off day and he goes, 'Are you panicking?' And I go, 'No, I'm not panicking.' Calls me on the off day, asks me the same question. I go, 'I wouldn't use that word.' But maybe what you think I'm feeling is what I'm feeling. He goes, 'Do you want to come in early tomorrow, hit on your own, so you don't have to rush and get your own time?'
'I walk in that morning into the cage, and I go, 'I'm panicking because I've been doing so much good in the cage, and it hasn't shown any results on the field yet.'
And he goes, 'Great, we can work with that. You think you're the first guy that's ever struggled in spring and then had a good season?' So he, [hitting coach Pedro Guerrero], and I had a 30-minute conversation, just talking.
'And I think it was the time where they really got to see who I was as a person, what I cared about,' Stowers continued. 'And to be honest with you, if I had to, like, pinpoint one moment that has really shifted things for me here, it was that moment.
'And things didn't get better right after, but just the understanding that we had in that moment, to be able to communicate, for me to be vulnerable to those guys and them to still believe in me and tell me that they have high hopes for me, I genuinely think that's something that's worth noting as a pinpoint for me this year.'