Fish Struggle on the Road

The Miami Marlins have been supremely lackluster for the last few games. Will they finally pick it back up against the Pirates?

The Miami Marlins just finished being swept by the Philadelphia Phillies and in turn completed their nine game road trip.

Finally returning home for their first game in Marlins Park since the 16^th, the Fish will look to bounce back tonight against the Pittsburgh Pirates.

This previous road trip has been filled with highs and lows. However, the lows have been of the lowest variety. During the two weeks they were on the road, the Fish allowed a total of 37 runs compared to their own tally of 33 runs.

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Averaging around four runs a game, under normal circumstances, would suggest that a team should win. However, for the Fish, those numbers were not enough to add up to a .500 road trip record.

While opponents were averaging 4.5 runs per game against the Fish during this trip, the numbers are slightly deceiving. Mixed into this road trip there were only two games decided by two runs or fewer. So, when the Marlins lost, they made sure to go down in flames. Reference their series in Seattle.

Shining Bright

There are a few individuals that shined brighter than the rest during the trip though. Giancarlo Stanton made sure to bring his bat as he launched four of his seven home runs against opponents while visiting. Three of those homers came against the Padres who, let’s face it, Stanton owns in PetCo.

J.T. Realmuto also continued his hot streak during the trip, batting .381 in his last 7. Most importantly though was the performance by the Marlins bullpen. Not the entire pen, we will get to that momentarily.

Specifically Brad Ziegler and Kyle Barraclough were phenomenal pitching a total of five innings between the two and not allowing any runs.

There was also two great performances from Adam Conley and Dan Straily, however, both resulted in no decisions.

Duds

This road trip could have gone far differently had it not been for a few things that were total disasters for the Marlins.

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Edinson Volquez. I’m just going to leave the name there for a moment. Volquez was brought in to be the Ace of a young staff. He has pitched far from Ace-like.

Volquez lost both of his outings during the road trip allowing six earned runs and walking eight over the course of eight and two-thirds total innings pitched.

Against the Mariners, Volquez barely made it out of the third inning and barely fared better against the Phillies. Those short outings place a lot of strain on our already exhausted bullpen.

Enter dud number two. David Phelps. I am going to preface this with Phelps showed significant improvement in his last two outings compared to how he has fared all season.

We still cannot neglect the fact that in San Diego Phelps allowed four earned runs in two innings pitched. Those runs, essentially, cost the Marlins the game against the Padres.

However, the pen has been used and abused this season. Far more than original expected. Not helping this has been the performance of Wei-Yin Chen.

Chen has been by far the most hit or miss Marlin this season. Perfect example. Against the Mariners, Chen posted a win while going seven innings of no-hit ball.

How did Chen follow this up? By giving up four runs over five innings against the Phillies. Given his win-lose track record so far this season, we might see Chen pitch a no-hitter in his next game.

Offensive Struggles

Time to address the elephant in the room. What is wrong with Marcell Ozuna. Ozuna started the season as one of the hottest Marlins bats. However, in this last road trip he record three, yes that’s right three, hits over 33 plate appearances. While Ozuna wasn’t the only one struggling, he was the most noticeable.

The other elephant in the room would been Dee Gordon. Gordon batted .200 on the road trip and has shown us one thing. Maybe taking a few more pitches isn’t a terrible idea.

Let’s just put it this way, both of these bats who are normally trusted for either on base or power, were out-performed by Adeiny Hechavarria. That should tell us a lot of the struggles they are facing.

Next: What the Future May Hold for the Fish

In order for the Marlins to remain competitors in the NL East, they will have to perform far more efficient than this. The Fish will also need to start receiving production from a few of their key players, especially in the pitching corps.

Hopefully a return home will do the Fish some good as they open up tonight against the Pirates.