Archive for August, 2009

I didn’t get the pleasure to see Mark Buerhle’s perfect game or Jonathan Sanchez’s no-hitter that should have been a perfect game had Juan Uribe not bobbled a ball for an error, but I did get the chance to be a part of much of Josh Johnson’s effort last night, if only by radio. I watched the highlights and looked through the numbers, and it was by far the most dominating pitching performance that I have ever been a part of. Josh Johnson was brilliant/electric/dominating/whatever… No matter how you put it, he was the best player on the field last [...]

I don’t mean to rub it in, but unfortunately, I feel the need to point out these mistakes by Marlins broadcasters. It really does make me sort of mad when these guys, who are the voices of the Marlins, spout misconceptions as facts. A couple nights ago, Rich Waltz said that Nick Johnson’s arrival and ability to grind out at-bats has really rubbed off on the Marlins. In particular, he mentions that while guys like Chris Coghlan and John Baker were already doing that, now that Johnson is here, guys like Jorge Cantu and Dan Uggla were getting into the [...]

Here at FanSided, we of the NL East teams are blessed to have all of our divison’s teams represented, thanks to the recently arriving Kevin David of Teddy Never Wins. I think this is a first in the baseball division of our awesome blog site, and we should be pretty happy about that. Because we could finally do something like this,  recently all of us NL East bloggers came together and did a Q&A with each other. Each of us sent in a question, for a dossier of five questions in total. Then we all sat down and turned in [...]

Before I try to diagnose Chris Volstad, let me diagnose you. You need a healthy dose of Marlin Maniac, which you can get daily right to whatever it is you use to read blogs by subscribing here. Doctor’s orders! Also, follow me on Twitter! I know, I know, I couldn’t help it. WARNING: This is my first time even attempting to make Pitch f/x visualizations on my own. I might be terrible. They might come off poorly. But I’m trying dab nabit. We all wish Chris Volstad was pitching a little better. After last season’s awesome start, the team was [...]

Uh, wow. Second time I’ve said that about the Marlins this year, and the second time also comes due to a giant come-from-behind rally. Let’s talk about some things in this game. The huge rally A shot of the rally’s plays from FanGraphs. This was an odd rally in that it only contained singles and walks the whole way. Hardly is there a time when you load the bases and score four runs and all you can muster is four singles and two walks. To compound that, three of those singles were poorly hit balls; Nick Johnson’s weak line drive [...]

Now I’m not saying we should run out and get Dan Johnson or Kelly Johnson (actually, I think Kelly Johnson’s not bad and he’s gotten a bit unlucky, but that’s not the point of this post), but certainly the Marlins have been fans of the name “Johnson” for some time now, and maybe more of them would not be unwelcome. Let’s first begin with our original Johnson, one staff ace Josh Johnson. Dave Allen over at FanGraphs did an awesome job charting JJ’s pitches for interesting and easy visualization. Particularly interesting is Allen’s commentary on how JJ can keep a [...]

First off, great win for the Marlins over the Astros last night. It was a perfect way to come off of that amazing sweep of the Phillies ending the day before. Let’s get to some observations. Matt Lindstrom’s woes continue. Looks like Matt Lindstrom’s DL stint didn’t really help him. After a relatively mild return to bullpen duty away from the closer role, Lindstrom had another mini-blowup last night, giving up two runs, one earned, and facing only four batters before being pulled for Leo Nunez. At some point, you have to think that Lindstrom just isn’t spotting his pitches. [...]

The Bites are back, discussing Marlins and sabermetric news in just a bit. – First off, tonight’s game against the Houston Astros, using the Baseball-Reference numbers-heavy preview. The Marlins are sending Rick VandenHurk to the mound versus an old friend, former Marlins pitcher Brian Moehler. Given that the Astros have been overachieving (as usual) all season long, this should be a good series for the Fish, and tonight a good game for them, especially given the way VandenHurk pitched in his last outing. Let’s go Fish! – After a bevy of teams beating down other teams in a big way, [...]

Coming off the crippling three-game sweep at the hands of the Washington Nationals, the Marlins really needed to win two out of three games to remain squarely in the hunt. I’m not a big believer of the “critical series,” but if there was ever a series that I would circle, given what I knew about the Marlins’ season to date, I would have circled this three-game set against the Philadelphia Phillies. Surprisingly, the Marlins came through in a big way, delivering a sweep of the defending World Series champs in a convincing fashion. Let’s take a look at some of [...]

Most of us Marlins fans regaled at the news that first baseman Nick Johnson had been acquired, if only to rejoice that the end of the Era of Bonifacio had come to a close. The front office and management of the Marlins had finally realized that Emilio Bonifacio was sapping up plate appearances while being a terrible hitter and below average fielder at third base. With Johnson and his robust .360+ wOBA, we were assured never to see Bonifacio’s face at the top of the lineup again, producing outs as if he were made to do so. Except that with [...]