Three things Miami Marlins need to do to contend this year

Despite having baseball’s best non-playoff storyline in the outfield, the Marlins continue to quietly climb into the NL Wild Card race.

With Giancarlo Stanton hitting home runs at the rate he is, it’s easy for all other things Miami Marlins to take a back seat.

But now that the club’s record sits at 64-63 for the season, one of the more epic turnarounds in the past two decades, perhaps it’s time for fans to start doing some scoreboard watching. Only the mighty Dodgers have played better than the Marlins over the past two weeks.

It’s a matchup that has “trap series” written all over it.

Despite a losing record, the Padres have been playing pretty good baseball themselves of late. The last time the Marlins won a season series against San Diego was their first year in Marlins Park. Not a gimme by any means.

On paper, the odds look good for Miami closing out the weekend with a winning record for the first time since April.

Can the club make a real run at Wild Card contention though? The schedule gives plenty of cause for optimism. If nothing else, the Marlins have six games remaining against the teams they are chasing in Arizona and Colorado.

Against those teams this season, the Marlins are a combined 6-1.

Of course, there are more questions than answers in the starting rotation. The bullpen is a bit of a roller coaster ride. So plenty of reason to hedge bets as well. But there are months of sample size now suggesting the team can make things interesting.

At worst, they might produce that elusive winning season.

How do the Miami Marlins put that in the bag though? What do they have to do to give themselves a realistic chance the rest of the way? Let’s take a look.

Promote Dillon Peters 

That’s not a photo of Miami Marlins top five pitching prospect Dillon Peters.

That’s a photo of Justin Nicolino getting ready to turn around and wonder why people don’t like missing his pitches.  He’s been serviceable since his latest recall from AAA New Orleans, but has failed to offer any consistent evidence he can be an MLB starting pitcher.

Peters could. In fact, we’re all but certain to find out at some point this season. Peters was looking like a June call-up until his early season injury. He has shown more than enough at AA Jacksonville to warrant a September cup of coffee when rosters expand.

But the part that would be a bold move is to promote him right now. If he plays for the Marlins in August, they can use him in October. The Fish are not going to find a better way to bolster their starting rotation than that.

What’s left of the the August waiver wire is noticeably bereft of obtainable starting pitchers. Peters hasn’t allowed more than 3 ER in eight consecutive starts, and has allowed more than one earned run just twice in that span.

He’s ready. Maybe you let Vance Worley see if he can continue his puzzling mastery of the Nationals, but then drop Peters into the rotation. This kid doesn’t need to make another start in the minors this year.

Cool it with the sell off chatter

Lastly, the Miami Marlins need to clearly, and forcefully nip something in the butt right now.

Which is that this team is going to try to make the postseason themselves. Not trade away more parts to help another contender’s chances.

The obvious example here would be Stanton. Jeffrey Loria and friends shrewdly decided to waste a couple weeks of feel good vibes by stoking the trade fires underneath baseball’s largest contract.

It’s hard to enjoy a home run chase when you know that your owner sees it as a chance to possibly save himself a few million more than he was counting on.

Let’s come out and say Stanton is staying in Miami. Be cute if you want Jeff, and say as long as I own the team, Stanton will be a Marlin. But allow fans to enjoy both the chase for Roger Maris and the 2017 postseason without wondering if they’re going to wakeup and find out he’ll be hitting No. 62 in Fenway.

But it goes even deeper than Stanton. On the previous slide, I almost made the case for adding a reliever. For shaking lose Juan Nicasio or Drew Storen. But if you peruse the listing of the current Top 20 August trade targets at MLB Trade Rumors, you’ll find that one of the Top 3 targets is the man pictured on this page.

That’d be current (thanks to two July trades) Miami Marlins closer Brad Ziegler.

Enough.

Next: Dave Hyde comments underscore challenge for Jeter

Bad enough to hear zero chatter on that score, even if it is somewhat understandable given the current ownership situation. But to actually see buzz that the front office might be looking to hamstring the team down the stretch, that’s the kind of thing that causes one to rethink bothering to pay attention at all.

Simple, free fix that might even spike September attendance Marlins brass. Just say this team is staying together down the stretch, and leave all trade talks at that until the offseason.