Miami Marlins vs. St. Louis Cardinals: Three stories to watch

The last time the Miami Marlins looked like a playoff team, they did so at the expense of the St. Louis Cardinals.

Securing a walkoff victory in Andrew Cashner‘s first start in a Miami Marlins uniform, the Fish locked up a pivotal tie breaker over a fellow NL Wild Card contender and climbed to nine games over .500 on the season. August beckoned brightly.

However, the Marlins would go on to lose four of their next five series, never really recovering. Having lost four of five heading into this series, Marlins fans will breathe a lot easier if their team can right the ship and stop the bleeding here against the Redbirds.

Doing so will not be easy. The two teams are at opposite ends of the streak spectrum entering play Monday, with the Cardinals at 7-3 and the Fish at 3-7 over their last ten games.  Basically, the Cardinals are slowly starting to look like the team baseball fans expected to see right out of the gates, while the Marlins are sending everyone from the front office to the press pool scrambling for answers.

Smart money says Jeffrey Loria will be blamed at some point.

Will this be the series we look back to as a turning point for a season that is seemingly heading for the rocks? We’ll have a better idea once we navigate our way through these three stories to watch. Let’s dive in.

Is Miguel Rojas About To Become A Starter? 

Weeks from now, as established in the lead-in, the hope is that Miami Marlins fans look back at this series as a turning point. That, of course, remains to be seen.

What seems much more certain is that this series will go a long way to determining if the Marlins need to make Miguel Rojas a member of the starting lineup.

With Martin Prado out, Adeiny Hechavarria still seemingly having to atone for 2016, and Justin Bour having to muscle his way through being Justin Bour, Rojas should see plenty of playing time. Despite dealing with a minor injury himself. I just see no way he avoids taking the field for two games of this series.

But even if he doesn’t play an inning over the next three days, the question still stands. Sure, J.T. Riddle has been recalled, and I’m sure he’ll make a cameo. Derek Dietrich could see a start as well. Make no mistake though, Rojas is the one who is on the rise, and it shouldn’t necessarily just be Hech that has to keep up.

Will The Healthy Miami Marlins Pitchers Step Up? 

Miami Marlins fans, theoretically, get a break from their pitching injury woes in this series. Adam Conley, Tom Koehler, and Dan Straily all take the hill, just as they have done all season. Which is comforting, and begs a vital question:

With two-fifths of the starting rotation suddenly out of commission, just who amongst the remaining three is going to pick up the slack?

Because right now, the answer is apparently Jose Urena. He was excellent yesterday in his six innings, and honestly should have been allowed to attempt the seventh. That result was great for the Marlins, but that result can’t be the answer to the above question either. In a rotation that lacks a true No. 1, it’s on the shoulders of everyone to dig a little deeper when the injuries come.

And when you add in the miles put on Marlins pitching over the weekend, the club really needs a couple more quality starts from their still standing trio of starting pitchers. Someone needs to bring the A game. My money is on Koehler, but it’s really a pick’em proposition.

Next: Sale of Miami Marlins becoming a popularity contest

One last point before we leave, a bonus fourth story if you will that is true of every Cardinals-Marlins contest. These teams know each other very well. Sharing a Spring Training home with a team is awesome in March when you want to avoid cramming your million dollar athletes onto buses. But when the time comes to play those pesky regular season games, that familiarity comes back to bite you.

Last year, the Miami Marlins made that work for them. We’ll just have to hope they were the clubhouse taking better notes this past spring as well.