Who Miami Marlins Fans Should Root For In LCS, World Series

The Washington Nationals 

Marlins 2 Nationals 0

That’d be the World Series stat line between the two NL East Rivals. The Marlins have won the World Series twice. The Nationals have never won a World Series. And not just since 2005, when they became the Nationals. But since 1969, when they became a team.

Marlins- two titles. Nationals- zero titles. Zero, from the early 17th century French word zero, meaning none. They’ve never won. The Marlins have. Twice.

Alright, done now.

Marlins Reasons: Well, we lost the division to them, fare and square. Joyously spiteful rant above aside, they’re better than us. Your best reason to root for the Nats is the classic “we lost to the eventual champion” apologia. And we played them close this year by the way, not falling under .500 against them until the last day of the season.

On the other hand, they’re the Washington Werth-Harpers, and watching them crash and burn could be fun for some of you. Definitely the best instance of having a team to passionately root against we have going this October.

Player-wise, former Fish Randy Knorr is their Senior Baseball Advisor. Knorr played for the 1998 Marlins. Given that team’s performance, guess you can go either way there.

Other Reasons: I’ll go ahead and rank Max Scherzer ahead of Corey Kluber, calling him the third best pitcher still pitching. Having never won, the Nationals would absolutely be a different storyline, though really the even-year Giants were the only completely stale storyline out of the original ten postseason bound clubs.

As objectively as possible though, the Nationals are a tough sell. Their superstar is polarizing, drawing as much adoration as he does enmity. He’s also really struggled this season, with every outfielder on the Marlins arguably having a better season. In a lot of years, they’d have the sentiment card from the average fan with the “never having won” argument going for them. But two teams have significantly longer droughts, and against the Cubs, all such claims to sympathy for suffering are laughable in comparison. No retiring fan favorites either to soften them up.

There’s probably a political joke to be found somewhere, likely one arguing for and against a national capital champion. I’ll go ahead and let you folks come up with your own.

End of the day, give me Canada over Chicago. Pass the poutine and the pizza, and enjoy the fireworks.

Next: Top Five Names We Want