Division race will make for a long summer.
May 8, 2008
It is only the second week in May, and it looks like the marathon race for the NL East will be a tight one all summer long. Division foes Florida, Philadelphia, New York and Atlanta are all within 1.5 games of each other and it does not look like a leader will pull away anytime soon.
Many cite that the Marlins youth and inexperience will cause the team to bow out of contention for their first division championship by the middle of the summer. However, many of these critics do not realize that the majority of our position players are in at least their third year of MLB experience, more than enough time to adjust to the lengthy 162-game schedule. The same cannot be said for our starting rotation, which, excluding Mark Hendrickson, had made only 107 combined starts in their careers. These young pitchers are continuing to develop, although sometimes a little bit slower than some fans may like, in the major leagues showing some notable outings as of late. It doesn’t hurt to have that stellar bullpen ready to go behind them. The rotation will receive a much needed boost in mid-July with the projected returns of the injured Anibal Sanchez, who has a 3.24 career ERA, and Sergio Mitre, who showed signs of greatness at the beginning of the 2007 season. Obviously we will not have these two starters until the All-Star break, which makes these next two months critical for the Marlins to stay in contention of the playoffs. The Marlins will continue their current 13-game stretch against Washington, Cincinnati, and Kansas City, all teams with records under .500 and at or near the bottom of their divisions.
The Nationals have been a familiar opponent to the Marlins early in the season, with Florida dominating the season series with a 5-1 record, however three of those games were decided by only 2 runs or less. The Friday match up will be against Tim Redding who has a team best 3.20 ERA and handed the Marlins their only loss in the season series. It will be a tough game to win with Ricky Nolasco on the mound, who has yet to show any type of consistency as a starter. In game two, Andrew Miller hopes to improve on a solid performance in his last outing where he gave up only 4 hits and 2 earned runs in 6 innings. It will be nice to see another strong performance by the ill-received pitcher who has been getting a lot of negative attention from the Marlins faithful. Florida ace Scott Olsen, whose games have been a beauty to watch all season, will pitch in the series finale. Olsen is tied for fourth in the NL with a 2.22 ERA while giving up only 32 hits in 48 innings pitched this season. During the first seven games of last season, Olsen threw nearly 11 innings less while giving up 12 more hits. Pitching coach Mark Wiley has really turned Olsen into one of the great pitchers in baseball this first month by speeding up the time in between his pitches. The fiery left-hander could have one of those magical seasons that Marlins pitchers have been accustomed to over the years.
The series against Cincinnati is one I look forward to every year since the 2004 season when Ken Griffey Jr. stared down Jack McKeon after he decided to intentionally walk Sean Casey to get to Griffey. Although Griffey claims he was not looking in the dugout and McKeon says there is no grudge between the two, playing the Reds always makes my blood boil a little bit more since that game in late May. Cincinnati is currently 7 games under the .500 mark and lost 6 of their last 8. The chances of this improving are slim with an upcoming series against the Mets before playing the Marlins. However, the Marlins-Reds series could be more important than it appears on the surface. Griffey is only 3 homeruns shy of reaching the 600 club, a feat that has only been accomplished by five other players in the history of Major League Baseball. The fact that this is not mentioned more in the media is astonishing, especially because of the fact that he will be the only one of the recent 600 club members not surrounded by performance-enhancing drug allegations. Can Griffey hit 3 homeruns in the next 7 games? Imagine if Griffey did not battle all those injuries throughout his career, this future hall-of-famer could be closing in on 700 homeruns.
The Marlins then open up inter-league play against the Kansas City Royals, who are 3 games under .500 but only 2.5 games out of the lead for the AL Central. The Royals do not have a hitter batting above .281 and are dead last in the AL in runs scored and RBIs, not to mention within the bottom three of their league in on base percentage, total bases, home runs, walks, and stolen base percentage. In case you could not tell from those statistics, Kansas City is a horrible team offensively. However their rotation is anchored down by a young ace out of Orlando. If their rotation does not change, the Marlins will be facing Zack Greinke in the final game of the series. Greinke is second in the American League with an incredible 1.80 era and a WHIP of only 1.02. Although, his ERA has been steadily, but slightly, rising throughout the season, this is a bit of a difference from his career ERA of 4.35.
Florida has a good chance to win these three series to head into their next 9-game stretch that includes series against the Diamondbacks and Mets at the end of the month.
