What fans should make of Miami Marlins many mistakes so far this season

The Miami Marlins certainly haven't made it easy on themselves as of late.

Since stirring up plenty of excitement among their fans with a 5-1 start, Miami has only managed to go 6-11 since. Put another way, after winning their first two series, they are yet to have won a third. The Marlins have dropped series to the Yankees, Tigers, Braves, and Brewers- three 2025 playoff teams and one arch division rival. It's been tough to watch.

However, it's not just the losses that have made the Marlins so maddening the past couple weeks. It's the way they've lost. True, the quality of competition has increased- those two series wins came against the lowly Rockies and White Sox. Yet on more than one occasion, it arguably hasn't been the opponent that beat them, but rather the Marlins themselves.

Miami is third in the league in number of errors. They have the third lowest fielding percentage. Bullpen decisions have been questioned repeatedly. The Marlins continue to allow far too many stolen bases, and have also continued to be to make too many baserunning blunders. In short, just too many self inflicted wounds.

Can some of those issues just be handwaved away? Perhaps. There are certainly better defensive metrics out there to assess the team's play. Miami's increased aggressiveness on the basepaths is a positive overall, and some mistakes might just be part of the package there. If Pete Fairbanks had never gone on paternity leave, the bullpen concerns are probably cut in half.

At the end of the day though, there has been a level of sloppiness that has cost the Marlins games. Some of it has been in ways that just wasn't there in the second half last season, as in the case of the defensive dip from Xavier Edwards and Otto Lopez. Some it has been in ways that have concerningly carried over, such as Agustin Ramirez being bad at everything that doesn't involve actively holding a baseball bat.

What remains to be seen is just what Marlins fans should make of all this.

Has it all been a mix of bad injury luck, cold weather, early season jitters, and rust? Plenty of organizations had more players participate in the WBC than Miami, but it's a much shorter list that had so much of their starting lineup participate. Is that playing a role? More coaching and more reps could do wonders. Maybe warmer weather and the return of Kyle Stowers fixes everything else.

If the self-inflicted wounds continue to mount though, is that something the organization can fix? Would that be on manager Clayton McCullough? Is that on the coaches behind him? Does the Agustin Ramirez As A Major League Catcher experiment just need to be put to a merciful end?

In theory, all of these issues are within the Marlins means to fix. This isn't a case of the baseball talent lacking, or the financial resources coming up short. Things can and should improve.

What remains to be seen is how many of the individuals responsible for the blunders so far continue on in those roles, and what the leash will be on making those changes. Because if they can't clean it up, the front office is going to have put someone else in.

And that doesn't just go for Marlins players, but Marlins coaches and staffers as well.

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