The Pittsburgh Pirates welcomed Colin Moran back with open arms, inserting him into the starting lineup at first base and in the cleanup spot of the batting order after a 28-day absence.

And Moran made an immediate impact, fielding a pair of grounders in the top of the first inning and drilling an RBI double in his first at-bat to give the Pirates an early lead over the Miami Marlins.

What Moran couldn’t control was how his counterpart would impact the game, as Jesus Aguilar homered, hit a sacrifice fly and made stops at first for the final two outs to lead the Marlins to a 3-1 comeback win to avoid a four-game sweep Sunday afternoon before 5,477 at PNC Park.

“It’s nice to have him back in our lineup,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said. “It lengthens our lineup, which is important. It’s nice to have him back.”

The Pirates (23-35) have Monday off, then host the Los Angeles Dodgers for a three-game series.

Moran was placed on the 10-day injured list May 9 after straining his left groin against the Chicago Cubs, an injury compounded for the Pirates when backup Phillip Evans strained his hamstring three days later. The Pirates turned to Todd Frazier, Will Craig and Erik Gonzalez, none of whom could replicate his power in the middle of the lineup.

“It was fun just to play baseball again,” Moran said. “I enjoyed being on a baseball field, even at the rehab assignment. Taking time off was tough because I just enjoy playing baseball.”

Moran wasted no time picking up where he left off. Adam Frazier reached on a fielding error by Aguilar and advanced to third on a double play, getting into scoring position for Moran. Moran didn’t hesitate to swing at Sandy Alcantra’s first pitch, an 85 mph curveball he grounded down the right-field line for a double for a 1-0 lead.

Aguilar enjoyed playing against the Pirates, going 6 for 13 (.461) with two homers and five RBIs in the series for the Marlins (25-33). He sent Chad Kuhl’s 2-2 slider 444 feet over the left-field fence to tie it 1-1 in the second inning, but it was the sixth that spelled trouble for the Pirates.

Kuhl (0-3) got off to a rough start in the sixth, hitting Jazz Chisholm with a pitch and giving up a single to left to Starling Marte. Corey Dickerson hit a routine grounder to second, but Frazier was aggressive in chasing the double play instead of the easy out.

That backfired when Frazier’s low throw skipped off the glove of shortstop Erik Gonzalez and into the outfield, allowing Chisholm to score for a 2-1 lead and Marte to advance to third.

“I thought he made the right play,” Shelton said. “Gonzo, as we’ve seen, is elite. It was just a tough play. It’s one of those ones that, if you make it, it’s a heck of a play. It just turned against us and, as well as we played defensively, it kind of stands out.”

Aguilar made it 3-1 with a sacrifice fly to right to score Marte. Gonzalez recovered to make a nice play to end the inning, taking the throw from catcher Michael Perez and making a swiping tag to catch Jon Berti stealing second.

But, after a weekend of wild wins, the Pirates ran out of rallies.

Kuhl leaned heavily on his slider — throwing it on 39 of 82 pitches (48%) — and allowed two earned runs on three hits in six innings. He gave up a homer, walked one batter and hit another. Marlins starter Sandy Alcantra (3-5) gave up one run on six hits and two walks with six strikeouts in eight innings. Yimi Garcia earned his 13th save.

Alcantra stranded runners in each of his final four innings, including two at third base — Ben Gamel in the fifth and Frazier in the eighth — by relying on good location and a dangerous pitch repertoire.

“He’s just got really good stuff,” Moran said. “He’s running the fastball up there to 99, had a really good changeup, good slider. He located all three of those pitches, at least to me. That’s what I saw, for the most part. He had a really good changeup. It was tough to cover that much mile per hour. You have 99 that can be at the top of the zone and changeups that are looking like it’s going to be a fastball down and fall out of the zone.”

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