A generic American sports fan could probably tell you how bad the Miami Marlins are this year without knowing anything about the standings. The Marlins went into this past Sunday with an astoundingly horrific record, not having won a single game in their first nine games, extending the team’s total losing streak coming into Sunday’s game against the St. Louis Cardinals to a total of 13, with 11 straight losses in the regular season.
This past Sunday has come and gone with the long-awaited first Marlins win! In just his second start of the season, Max Meyer pitched another terrific outing, going six innings allowing 1 ER on 3 Hits and 1 Walk. Max Meyer’s performance this past Sunday was his second start of the season, but what’s to take away from his starts is that they have both been terrific outings. His ERA for the year is 2.45 on 11 Innings pitched. This is terrific for the team that is looking at a depleted starting rotation due to injuries. The Miami Marlins Starting rotation through the first two weeks of the season and what looks to be the rotation until at least the end of the month is completely different outside of one pitcher from the rotation the Marlins rode last year into making their first playoff appearance in a full season since 2003. The missing starters are Sandy Alcantara, Eury Perez, Braxton Garrett, and Edward Cabrera. In their place are Max, A.J. Puk, Ryan Weathers, and Trevor Rogers. So, this rotation in terms of talent is clearly not as good on paper and with a lot of quick outings to start the season it’s showing. So, kudos to Max for giving this team some hope in having a good arm to go to throughout the year and a potential future ACE to build a rotation around.
The Marlins bats finally had a good consistent game as for every other game the Marlins have really piled on the runs this year it feels like a 1st inning barrage and the bats from there go basically dead. However, on Sunday against the Cardinals not only did they have a big first inning that included two 3-run HRs by one by Jazz and one by Nick Gordan. The team as a whole had seven batters with a hit and four with multiple hits putting up a 10 runs total. How come then it’s also a bitter day? Well, as Marlins fans were watching the game, it was leaked that Skip Schumaker’s contract situation was leaked.
This leak wasn’t the news Marlins fans would like to hear, being that the team had chosen not to pick up the Team’s option on his contract for him to remain the manager next year. So, with the lackluster moves to improve the team’s offense and shore up the rotation in the offseason, this was another sign from the front office and ownership that we’re in for a long rebuild. A long rebuild I call it because everyone that’s good on the team is on one-year contracts, and Marlins fans are very familiar with extraordinarily good seasons followed up immediately by fire-sale seasons.
A big win on Sunday to get the Marlins into the win column brings the team into a week of games against the AL and NL East respective leaders. These teams also seem to never have to worry about the salaries of the players they sign. This week the Marlins have a series against the Yankees and Braves. As I write this, the Marlins have already dropped the first two against the Yankees. They lost the first game 7-0, putting up an abysmal offensive performance having only two hits from Bryan De La Cruz, as well Jesus Luzardo, current Ace in rotation, gave up two 3-run home runs himself. Then we lost a close one in which A.J. Puk, though not giving up a lot of earned runs, didn’t pitch deep and taxed the Marlins bullpen once again with lots of innings. Later this week the Marlins go on to face the Braves who lead the division and they’ll be big games because no matter the separation in the standings playing within your division always adds extra weight onto the competition.
