Miami Marlins offensive struggle in August, 4 players that were big reasons why

The Miami Marlins August record was 10-17 and the biggest struggle the Marlins had was on offense, posting a -32 run differential.  Although their pitching staff, particularly the bullpen, struggled as well they had a notoriously bad offensive month.  Pitching aside there were several different players who didn’t produce all month.  

There were some bright spots in the Marlins' offense that saved the team, especially trade deadline acquired players.  Josh Bell was lights out and had many clutch hits and home runs.  He was a one-man wrecking crew and often saved games or won them outright, almost by himself.  

Jake Burger had some great hitting streaks and some heroic moments of his on in August and helped lead the way to the Marlins being victorious.  Had Kim Ng not acquired either Jake Burger or Josh Bell I don’t think the Marlins would even be in playoff talks at all as we start September.  Let’s take a look at the players that really didn’t help the team at all in August and with the hope they turn it around for the last month of the season.  

Jacob Stallings

Jacob Stallings isn’t a great hitter to begin with, so his lack of production is normal, however, August was even worse than normal.   When good players slump it can still be more productive than the bottom of the lineup, but it is really bad when the bottom of the lineup slumps.  Stallings played in 16 games starting 13 of them in August and posted a .147 average.  

Stallings also had a typical power showing, which resulted in 1 home run and 2 RBI with 3 doubles.  That’s not atypical for Stallings but it hurts even more when you are hitting only .147.  To make matters worse and to emphasize how poorly he was playing, Stallings was hitless from August 1st until his 1-for-4 night on August 18th. 

That’s 10 games in a row without a single hit, and to make matters worse he had another hitless pair of games after he went 1-for-4 leaving him with 1 hit for the month until August 26th.  Stallings ended the month with a 3 game hit streak which made his stats seem not as bad, as all 3 doubles were hit during that hit streak.  Not counting those 3 games at the end of the month, Stallings was hitting .040 for the month.  That says it all.  

Joey Wendle 

Marlins shortstop Joey Wendle likely saved his job with hot play in the month of June.  Wendle hit .354 in June and had his only home run of the season along with 3 RBI.  It seemed as if the old Wendle was back, but that was not the case.   Wendle came back down to reality in July at .174 for the month but then really crashed in August.  

Wendle played in 21 games in August and started 17 of them resulting in 54 plate appearances.  Now the biggest impact is not his batting average, as it was around the normal average for many weeks throughout the season, yet still lower.  Wendle has a paltry slash line in August of .154/.167/.231 with an OPS of .398.  That is truly unheard of for an everyday starter for any team.  

The fallout from Wendle’s performance has a real impact on a teams performance and when coupled with other struggling players, makes it very easy for teams to run through the Marlins lineup with little resistance in spots.  Of his 8 hits for the month he had 2 doubles and 1 triple while driving in 4.  Wendle’s streaks of hitless games were much less than Stallings but combined with Stallings that’s 2 easy outs for any opposing pitcher.

Nick Fortes

The other half of the catching platoon left the Marlins with no options as Nick Fortes struggled in August as well.  Fortes is the only other option after Stallings, who we know struggled all month.  Fortes started 14 games and appeared in 17 total for the month.  

Fortes had a slash line of .171/.261/.317 with an OPS of .578 which doesn’t seem so bad when looking at Wendle’s numbers.  He had 1 home run with 2 runs batted in and hit 3 doubles for the month.  His last 7 games of the month Fortes was 1-for-19 for a .053 average. 

Those numbers aren’t as bad as others, especially for a typically non-power position.  The biggest impact of course was the combination of the two different catchers playing miserable baseball for an entire month.  Skip had no options all August for catchers, and the two areas Kim Ng was supposedly looking to upgrade, catcher and short, were full of holes for the entire month.