Jesus Walks

 

I did not want to assume that Sandy Alcantara was the glue holding the Miami Marlins together. Famously, even when he was active with them, the team wasn't guaranteed to do well. His first full season, 2019, he led the league in losses...while also having an ERA lower than 4 and making an All-Star team. In 2020 he missed some games and the Marlins still made the playoffs. The majority of Alcantara's career is made up of seasons with negative W/L ratios, he was just extremely good while he was there. I never thought this team solely came down to Sandy Alcantara.

But...since he got hurt, the Marlins have pencil dove out of the playoffs, lost their best hitter before the trade deadline even began, and already seem like last place finishers in a division race that still has 4 months left in it. I get the sense that if Sandy was here it wouldn't be going down like that.

At the same time, the Marlins are this bad without Eury Perez as well, who was there for the heat of the 2023 season and made the most of his 19 games pitched while being 20 years old. If you add Perez and Alcantara back into the Marlins' rotation, that takes away a lot of problems. You don't have to put Sixto Sanchez or A.J. Puk out there to die, you can put less pressure on Trevor Rogers, you don't risk burning out Edward Cabrera and you can rely on Weathers and Luzardo as back-half options rather than 'if you don't win the team sinks further into the ground' guys. But as it is, Weathers is doing the best he can but is at 3-4, Luzardo is really trying to get back to where he was but he's got a 4.14 ERA and a brief IL stint, and Rogers' comeback year being a 1-6, 5.65 ERA debacle.

And of course there's no run support. Because why would a team with Josh Bell, Jake Burger, Bryan de la Cruz and Jazz Chisholm have any run support? You can see the replacement players fully trying to carry the team now, guys like Otto Lopez, Dane Myers, Vidal Brujan, Nick Gordon a little. What's even going on with the heart of this team? Tim Anderson can't hit AND he's a liability in the infield. Bell's hitting for power but can't do much else. Chisholm is a solid player but he's not blowing the doors off the place like he did in 2022. It's just tepid hitting all around, without a rear savior anywhere nearby. And this is just how it is right now.

The Marlins were better than this last year, and now that one or two players are hurt it's depressing and dull. I hate that a team that seemed so fun is now so much less enjoyable to talk about. Hopefully it gets better, but...can it?

Coming Tomorrow- Right now a Cardinals rookie shortstop is on a massive hitting streak, which must be awkward for any former Cardinals shortstops in the league who've forgotten how to hit.