Florida Marlins

The Florida Marlins' 2009 season got off to nothing short of a dream start back in April. Two full weeks into the season the Fish were 11-1 with the best record in baseball and a wide lead in the NL East. Sure it was early in the season, but it was the best start in team history and it energized South Florida with prospects that the franchise was finally ready to see its youth movement served with a strong post season run. Then the team hit a bit of a road block. After their fast start the Marlins would finish April on a 3-7 run, dropping their record to 14-13. At this point the team still had a winning record and had finished the month with a 3 game win streak against strong opponents, perhaps the 7 game slump was just a hiccup. The month of May however would prove it was no hiccup as the Marlins went from bad to worse as the Marlins went 9-20 and won back to back games only twice. So far in June the Marlins appear to have only leveled out as they are on a current stretch of 13 games in which they’ve won back to back only once and typically win one night and lose the next.

Continue reading "Florida Marlins' crippled by inconsistency"

With the MLB playoffs set to begin, there is a subtle difference in the air compared to start of any other postseason. In the NHL, fans can potentially look forward to a great Canadians/Bruins series that is not only exciting, but has a historical kick to it. Likewise basketball fans always have the chance to see if the Suns can finally get past the Spurs and football fans love seeing the rivalry of the Eagles Vs the City of Philadelphia when the Eagles so much as get tackled for a loss.

Continue reading "The Ups and Downs of the MLB Playoffs"

One of the All-Star Break traditions: Reassessing our predictions from the first half of the season. Some of mine have changed, some have stayed the same—and some were just damn wrong. Living in the West, I will take the contrarian position and roll from west to east in my choices.

Continue reading "Second Half Predictions"

For many baseball fans, last night wasn't a great night to watch baseball, as blowouts predominated early on. But, because of the beautiful game that is baseball, only three of them continued in their lopsided fashion, with the best of them highlighted by a homer from Micah Owings, the best-hitting pitcher in baseball, whom teammate Conor Jackson said had the "best pop" of anyone on the team. And all of them showed something about the winning and losing teams, proving that any baseball game is worth watching, even when it doesn't seem exciting.

Continue reading "The Night of the Blowouts"

Florida Marlins

Can the Marlins keep any of their young arms healthy?

Lately Miami is where promising young arms go to die. The Marlins have taken the exact opposite approach with their young pitchers than the care that teams like the Red Sox and the Yankees have shown with theirs. This is largely due to need as Florida has been unwilling to increase the payroll to bring in free agents and have been forced to rely almost exclusively on their minor league talent pool to get innings. As a result we have seen such promising pitchers as Josh Johnson, Anibal Sanchez and Sergio Mitre have their careers derailed because of over use.

Continue reading "MLB 2008 Season Preview: National League East"