What a weekend in New York for the Marlins. Each game featured at least one quality start, some less than quality umpiring, and about 23 bottles of Pepto Bismol. There was some nasty stomach virus circulating around Citi Field (apparently they forgot to sterilize the brand-new $900 million facility) that infected at least three players. Carlos Beltran left the Saturday game early, JJ managed to pitch through it, and John Maine had his start on Sunday cut short due to the illness. Now, a cheap-shot artist would somehow find a way to make a joke along the lines of: at least the Mets were doing something other than choking for once but I'm not going to go there...
What made me even sicker was the umpire's call on Friday night on the liner to Center early in the game that Beltran trapped...and it was ruled a catch. I don't recall who hit it, but I DO remember that the Fish would have loaded the bases with only 1 out had the play been called correctly. I don't like to repeatedly get on the umpires, because usually that means that you are searching for excuses to justify a tough loss, but when the calls keep mounting in the other teams favor, they become impossible to ignore. One positive on Friday was the stellar effort of Sean West. He allowed just an Omir Santos home run through 7 innings, and got a key strike-out of Beltran when he needed it. Too bad Pelfrey picked that night to finally toss a good game against the Marlins. Oh, and to Ronny Paulino: I can see now why no one really wanted you to be their catcher in Spring Training; Your defense in pathetic. It's bad enough that a major league catcher allows about 98.2% of the steal attempts against him to be successful, but when you throw the ball into the outfield and put the winning run at third base with only one out....you really need to learn another position. Did I mention that the winning run who stole second was also a 40 year old?!
All that aside, if the Marlins can continue to string strong starts together like they did over the entire 3-3 road trip (in which no starter allowed more than 3 earned runs), they should be OK moving forward. Some other notes:
I really like Coghlan in the lead-off spot, because he is not afraid to take a close pitch. Now, if they could somehow move Baker or even Hermida (I still don't really like him, but he is producing right now) up to #2 and bat Boni 7th or 8th the Marlins would have 2 patient hitters who will work the count and take a few walks hitting in front of Hanley and Cantu. Yes, that would put 2 lefty's in a row at the top, but wasn't that what Pierre and Castillo were most of the time anyway?
Bonifacio had a decent 2 days hitting second, as he smoked 2 doubles on Saturday, then walked and had an RBI single off Putz on Sunday, but I don't think that will last. I look at Saturday's game from the other angle: If Tim Redding is allowing Bonifacio to pull ropes down the right-field line, his pitching career is in serious trouble. And the Marlins seem to have Putz's number, as they have scored 4 runs off him this year. But, it seems that Fredi likes Boni in the 2-hole, and he is going to be there for a while, so no sense complaining about it.
On Sunday, despite all the bloopers the Mets hit that fell in for singles and doubles and the line-outs the Fish had (like Uggla's double that was a foot from being a HR, and Cantu hitting the ball as hard as humanly possible right to Wright for a double play with a man on third in the middle innings) they still had the tying run at third with one out in the 8th inning. Parnell struck Cantu out, and then got Hermida to fly out. That was just a tough loss, and despite all the bad breaks, the Marlins had a chance to tie the game right there. I just tip my cap to Parnell, and realize that Cantu can't get a hit every time up, after all he was robbed twice, so I can't get on him for whiffing there.
Memorial Day in my mind is the first time you can really look at the standings and try to draw some conclusions about your teams chances for the season. Here we are the week after it, and the Marlins sit 6.5 games out of first place and 5 games under .500. Oddly enough, the Marlins are one of the 7 NL teams to be .500 or better on the road (14-14) yet they are 9-14 at home. If they can maintain that .500 pace on the road and start to play better at home, they have a chance to climb up in the standings.
An 11 game homestand awaits, with the Brewers, Giants and Cardinals coming to town. An 8-3 homestand would move the Marlins back to .500 before they go on the road for 6 games against the AL East. Now is it fair to expect that given the way that the Marlins played in May? Heck no, especially since they will be playing quality teams; But when you consider that when they hit the road 12 of their next 15 will be against the Blue Jays, Red Sox, Yankees and Rays, the Marlins MUST take advantage of this long homestand. One game at a time, but unless the Fish can manage to win about 17-18 games this month, they could be staring a looooong summer in the face. Back when this core group was 11-31 in 2006 they started to get an a roll in June and won 20 out of 24 at one point. To duplicate that run would be a little extreme, but unless the Fish can string a few good weeks together (and they were 4-3 last week) soon, it may time to call the season quits by the All-Star Break. I'm not trying to be Mr. Doom and Gloom, just being honest.
The 'Jeff Conine Award' this week goes to the entire starting pitching staff. From 5/24 to 5/31 (7 games) they totaled 45.2 IP, 15 ER, 15 BB, 30K; An average of 6.2 IP, 2.95 ERA, and a 2:1 K:BB ratio. And that was against the highest scoring offense in the AL, the Phillies and the Mets. Obviously, there's a lot to like about that. Now, just keep it up guys.....
I apologize for any typo's, I'm under time constraints and the spell check is being a little wacky today, like telling me that 'outfield' isn't a word, but grouping the two words longhomestand together is
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June 03, 2009
