Miami Marlins Fish Flash 8/11

Morning Marlin Maniacs, trust your Thursday is treating you well.  Certainly better than Brandon Crawford treated the Marlins at any rate. Too soon? Yes, perhaps it was.

After a back and forth, bullpen burning thriller Monday night, Miami managed to eke out only two runs across their next eighteen innings of work.  Unfortunately, both of those came in Tuesday’s 2-0 victory, and the Fish dropped the series finale against the even-year powered Giants 1-0. So mark that down as one game they should have won, one game they did, and one game that saw the offense fail to scratch out a single run against a starter that had managed to avoid giving up a run in a game since 2015.

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• Miami Marlins rejected Boston‘s trade offer
• Miami Marlins are pursuing Michael Conforto
• Miami Marlins need to spend to win

The scary thing is that this is a Giants team that isn’t as invincible looking as it once was.  That Cubs sweep can be written off- they’re the best in baseball, and no one else is winning their division. But the Giants are dangerously close to having to actually care about the Wild Card race, and as a consequence, the Marlins could soon find themselves chasing a team they don’t own a tiebreaker over.  Those playoff dreams are starting to look all the more perilous, and August is fast approaching mid-month status.

But now for that Fish Flash. From a professional first, to a new milestone, to a glimmer of good pitching news, we’ve got you covered. Time to dive in.

Chen On The Mend? 

According to Joe Frisaro of MLB.com, absent starter Wei-Yin Chen has started down the road to recovery. Joe takes you through the progress, and speculates on what time table the veteran lefty could be looking at if things go well.  Check it out.

Barry Bonds Is Not Impressed 

Couldn’t resist the McKayla Maroney shout out in honor of another awesome effort by U.S. Women’s Gymnastics the other night. But no, impressed was not a word you could use to describe arguably the greatest baseball player of all-time at all, when it comes to measuring the appraisal of the strike zone yesterday.  ESPN and the AP provide some respective video and analysis.

Ichiro Climbs Higher  

Lastly, we’ll close with one more dose of Joe Frisaro, as the numbers covered here are impressive in any format.  The one silver lining to cherish in Wednesday’s loss was Ichiro’s start, and his continued assault on the record books.  Worth a read.