Archive for April, 2011

Coming off one of the most successful home stands in recent memory, the Florida Marlins are heading out on an NL Central trip, stopping off first to meet the Cincinnati Reds before heading out to see the St. Louis Cardinals. Of course, the Reds are the defending NL Central champs and boast some excellent young players who are locked up long-term. To some extent, they resemble the Marlins and how they have built this current 2011 incarnation. Florida Marlins @ Cincinnati Reds (13-12), April 29-May 1, Games 24-26 NL East Standings Tm W L Win% GB PHI 16 8 .667 [...]

After the heroics of Omar Infante on Monday for the first game of the series, the Marlins split the remaining games against the Los Angeles Dodgers, completing an excellent homestand with a slightly disappointing loss. In between the first and the last game, the Fish got a surprisingly good performance from Chris Volstad, who put up his first strong start of the season. Series Hero: Chris Coghlan (0.546 WPA) Series Goat: John Buck (-0.332 WPA) Impressed by: Chris Volstad (7 IP, 2 R, 5 K, 1 BB, 0 HR) Depressed by: Clay Hensley (1 IP, 0 R, 0 K, 3 [...]

Recently, Jeff Sullivan of Basbeall Nation and Lookout Landing fame had this to say about Marlins ace Josh Johnson: osh Johnson is most definitely an underrated young pitcher. I don’t think there’s any questioning the notion that his playing in Florida has been an obstacle to his getting the attention his results would warrant. But elite? I’m not yet convinced. Why is he not convinced? Sun Life Stadium. The ability’s all there, but I’ll need to see him show it in more than one ballpark. Essentially, there seems to be something of an effect on strikeouts in Sun Life Stadium, [...]

Coming off a good week for the Marlins, let’s discuss some of the best links regarding the Fish from this week. – The Marlins are thinking a return to a closed stance by Hanley Ramirez will bring back his game and end his season-long slump. If he feels comfortable with it, I guess that’s fine, but you have to make sure you’re not unnecessarily tinkering with a player if he is otherwise doing OK. Sometimes a guy just needs a little more luck, and I think that’s the case with Hanley. – Speaking of changing stances, Donnie Murphy is talking [...]

As I promised, Kenny Shulsen of Lasorda’s Lair and I went ahead and did a quick three-question segment with each other as a preview to the current Marlins / Los Angeles Dodgers series. Kenny was unable to get his answers to me in time for the series preview post, but he was gracious enough to send them anyway, and he had a few questions for me as well with regards to the Fish. —– First off, here are my three questions and his answers. 1. What do you see as the biggest difference between 2011 Matt Kemp and the 2010 [...]

The Marlins defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers last night in thrilling fashion, walking off in the bottom of the ninth inning after coming into the ninth trailing by one run. Oddly enough, the hero of the evening was Omar Infante, whom was the object of great ridicule earlier in the evening via Twitter. How can he be a “zero” in one instance and immediately turn into a hero the next? A look at Win Probability Added (WPA) certainly should say something about the matter. That ugly eighth Infante was twice the cause for ugly plays in the eighth inning. The [...]

After a successful series versus the Colorado Rockies, the Marlins will host the final set of three games of this most recent homestand against the Los Angeles Dodgers. Marlin Maniac Series Previews return as well to discuss the series at hand. The Dodgers are sending two of their best pitchers against two of the Marlins’ worst, but the lower half of that rotation includes Anibal Sanchez, who recently had his best pitching performance of his career. It should be interesting to see how the hot Dodgers team fares against a Marlins club that is not at its full strength. Los [...]

The Marlins faced the Colorado Rockies, the team’s expansion brethren, over the past weekend in a matchup of two clubs that began play in 1993 and were doing very well to start the season. The Fish beat the Rockies in two of three games over the weekend, including an exciting series finale victory featuring a pitcher’s duel between young aces Ubaldo Jimenez and Josh Johnson, the first significant offensive event in Omar Infante‘s tenure as a Marlin, and a huge bomb by Mike Stanton. Oh, and there was almost a no-hitter by Anibal Sanchez too. Quite a series. Series Hero: Mike [...]

As we all know, Logan Morrison apears to be out two to four weeks after spraining an unspecified ligament in his left foot. At least the guy was a sport about it: “I diagnosed with a lisfranc sprain. So I have a girl tendon sprain,” Morrison said, using crutches because he has a hard cast on his left leg that starts just below his knee and covers most of his foot. Morrison went on to describe some other problems created when he left the batter’s box after hitting a ground ball in his first at-bat Tuesday night and will keep [...]

The Marlins took their first series sweep of the season by taking three of three from the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Fish capped off the series with a high-scoring affair, but the performances of Josh Johnson and Ricky Nolasco were the real highlight of the three-game set. The offense performed, but Johnson and Nolasco truly impressed in their pair of shutouts in the first and second games. Series Hero: Josh Johnson (0.401 WPA, including his two-RBI single) Series Goat: I’d be hard-pressed to point out one person who did all that poorly in this series Impressed by: Josh Johnson (7 IP, [...]