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.

Trade for an infielder 

Somewhere out there is the 2017 Miami Marlins version of 2003 Jeff Conine.

The Marlins front office needs to pay penance for giving on this team way too soon and go out and get him.

Jed Lowrie, Brandon Phillips, Steve Pearce, Logan Morrison, even Asdrubal Cabrera all come to mind as acceptable options here. Even a lesser talent would work. See, this isn’t about an already productive offense replacing Justin Bour or Martin Prado.

This is about replacing Mike Aviles and/or Tomas Telis.

Bour and Prado could return soon. Both are certainly trying. However, that is still at least two weeks off, and the Marlins are giving up plenty of at bats in the interim.

At bats that Marlins fans would feel a lot more comfortable about if they were being taken by someone who made you believe he could put up even a .260 average.

Even a veteran with some postseason mileage under his belt would be a boost. Conine himself only batted .238 in his time filling in for Mike Lowell. But you can bet there were some clutch hits in there (5 HR in a month span), and that he impacted the lineup on the field and in the clubhouse.

Both as an actual and emotional lift, time to reward the efforts of the clubhouse with a bit of reinforcement.