Quick Bites today, I don’t have a whole lot of time unfortunately. Going to a concert with me-lady, so we’re going to be prepping soon.
- First, tonight’s matchup against the Nationals. I likely won’t be able to watch, but it should be an interesting game. Sean West takes the mound against Craig Stammen, as West looks to improve on a rough outing last time around. The Nationals are as good a target as any, though their hitters have been league average and have some serious pop.
- You might have read my early morning tirade about Bonifacio. Here’s Craig’s tirade on [...]

Rob Neyer pointed it out again, but I’d like to take a crack at it myself. Here’s Juan C. Rodriguez of the Sun-Sentinel on our very own favorite terrible player:
Yet for all that, I thought manager Fredi Gonzalez had a telling quote about him afterthe game: ” Boni, even through all the stuff he’s been going through, at the beginning of the year and hitting .900 and people expecting him to hit .970, he comes every day to work and he’s getting better. He’s got a nice little hitting streak going. He’s hitting a little over .300 from the right [...]

I did an interview today with Brant Houghton of FanSided’s Phillies blog, That Balls Outta Here, talking about the Marlins, their chances at the division, and what went right and wrong about this season’s fast start and slow May. Make sure you check out Brant’s blog, it’s some premier Phillies stuff, thoughts and analysis, good things going over at our division rival’s blog. The transcript follows.
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1. What was the key to the Marlins fast start?
There were two major factors in that ridiculously fast start by the Fish. One was starting pitching, and the other was the Nationals. We did take [...]

Coming off a disappointing Rays sweep of the Marlins, here are some links to dry those tears.
- First, let’s talk about tonight’s remedy for a losing streak, the Nationals! Tonight’s matchup features Ricky Nolasco going up against struggling former Marlin Scott Olsen, fresh off of a DL stint. As you know, the Marlins swept their games so far against the Nationals, and I suspect that today should be no different. I will however note that three of those games were late-inning thrillers that were close to the wire; in fact, in the three games in Washington, the Nationals held the [...]

A dissapointing end to a Rays sweep of the Marlins at the Trop. Still, other than today’s game, you can make the argument that the Marlins matched toe-to-toe with the team with the best run differential in the American League, so you can’t be too disappointed with the way the team played over the weekend. Luckily, the Marlins start a set at home with their favorite remedy for a losing skid, the Washington Nationals. Let’s get to the game.
The Marlins’s bats struggled again in Tampa.
This was the cumination of a series-wide slump against superior Rays pitching. It was difficult to [...]

Sorry for the missing pieces from last night. I promise to keep working, but as my school begins once again I’ll have a little less time to post as the week goes on. Still, for today’s debacle, I’ll talk. Here’s the BoniLine:
Best Performer:
Emilio Bonifacio: 4 PA, 1 H, 1B, 1 BB, 1 R, 1 SB, WPA: .60
Bonifacio actually didn’t score as the best performer, as Wes Helms received that honor for flagging a bases loaded walk in the ninth inning of today’s game. I don’t buy that as a legitimate top performance, and Bonifacio seemed to have the best day [...]

Late Blogservations today, I apologize. Let’s get right to this mess.
The bullpen, oh the bullpen…
In what was otherwise a tight matchup between two evenly matched starters, what broke the Marlins last night was the performance of their bullpen. Burke Badenhop allowed two hits after two fly ball outs, and Renyel Pinto began the trouble immediately after striking out Carlos Pena in a high leverage situation. Pinto walked two men before being pulled for Brian Sanches, who got tagged for the remainder of the runs in the eighth inning. Without two big cogs in the pen for the Marlins, it will [...]

Here’s the BoniLine for a disappointing 7-3 loss to the Rays.
Emilio Bonifacio: 4 PA, 2 H, 2 1B, 2 K, WPA: -.01
Best Performer:
Hanley Ramirez: 5 PA, 3 H, 1 1B, 1 2B, 1 HR, 1 R, 2 RBI, WPA: .287
Hanley had another excellent game offensively, and it was nice to see Jorge Cantu swinging a very good bat. However, no one else on the team was able to pick up the slack for the offense, and it ended up that our 11 hits were more spread out than the Rays’. Bonifacio had an uneventful two-hit day that did little to [...]

Here’s the first installment of the Shark in the Tank, an interview series with fellow FanSided baseball bloggers whose teams the Marlins are going up against. Hopefully, I’ll be able to do this once for each team we face the rest of the season. It will give us Marlins fans some perspective on who we’re facing, their current positives and problems, and what we can expect in each series. Here’s the first interview with Dustin Staggers of Rayhawk Review. Check him out some time, he’s got some good Rays-related news and recaps.
Michael Jong: Hey everyone, welcome to the first of [...]

The Marlins won their fifth straight game last night and stand two games over .500, but David Pinto of Baseball Musings wonders who the real Marlins are.
The most likely explanation for the difference in the number of long streaks is just random luck. Plenty of combinations of wins and losses get a team to two-games over .500, and many of those contain long streaks. On the other hand, long streaks might occur if Florida was in fact a very good team, but sensitive to small perturbations, possibly due to the lack of depth. One or two key players suffering an [...]