Toronto at Miami, June 19-21

It wasn't just Texas. I also thought the Marlins would be better this season, and said as much in these very virtual pages.

Gosh, you may wonder. How did you become so wise?

It was easy. The Marlins lost 40 games by just one run in 2022. They were not going to do that again, at least not any time soon. The Marlins figured to post a better record this season simply by not being so utterly plagued by Random Bad Luck.

But what's happened this year is they've replaced 2022's mysterious ill luck (24-40 in one-run games) with equally inexplicable Good Luck. In 2023, they've gone 18-5 in the one run games.

It's very much the same quality of baseball team. They still have the least frightening collection of hitters in the National League. A year ago, they were dead last in Runs Scored, and this year's crew is likewise dead last. They didn't give up all that many runs in 2022, even while losing 93 games, ranking sixth in the NL in preventing the other team from scoring. And this season, despite the travails of last year's Cy Young winner, the Marlins are... sixth best in the league at preventing the other team from scoring.

So there we are. Both seasons they ranked 15th out of 15 in scoring runs, and 6th out of 15 in preventing runs from being scored. They were outscored by 90 runs last season when they went 69-93.They've been slighly better than that this year; they've been outscored by 24 runs in less than half the season so far. Except they have a 41-31 record and hold the first NL Wild Card spot.

If you ever expect this game to make sense... prepare to be disappointed.

The Marlins did a couple of interesting things this off-season. They sent starting pitcher Pablo Lopez to Minnesota in exchange for second baseman Luis Arraez. One of the things that made this more interesting was the fact that the Marlins had signed Jean Segura as a free agent two weeks earlier. Segura is also a second baseman. Making this even more interesting is the fact that the Marlins most exciting young player, Jazz Chisholm, is also a second baseman. The Marlins also had the very serviceable Jon Berti on the roster, and while Berti can probably play anywhere, he's spent most of his professional career... well, have a guess! He's mostly been a second baseman. The Twins did play Arraez at first base for some 60 games last season, but that never made very much sense. Partially because Arraez had never played the position before, but mostly because he stands 5 foot 10, and I don't think we've had a 5'10 first baseman since Steve Garvey retired.

And anyway, the Marlins signed ex Astro Yuli Gurriel in March so he could play first base.

So how would Miami possibly get this particular collection of talent to make any kind of sense?

They would move Segura to third base. Granted, he'd hardly ever played there, but he did come up as a shortstop. They would move young Chisholm to centre field. Chisholm had never played the outfield in his life, but was quite enthusiastic about giving it a try. Gurriel would play first, Arraez would play second, and Jon Berti would become the everyday shortstop.

Is it working?

It's hard to say. Arraez has been wonderful with the bat, the closest thing we've had to Rod Carew since... well, since Rod Carew himself, I suppose. Arraez is a throwback, a LH hitter with no power, who never strikes out, puts everything in play, and ends up dropping lots and lots of line drives - some hard, some soft, some neither one nor the other - into those sweet spaces between the infielders and the outfielders. It worked in Carew's day, it worked in Matty Alou's day, it worked in Wee Willie Keeler's day. And apparently it still works today.

As for the rest of it... well we won't even see Chisholm or Segura this week. Both are on the IL, for what should be reasonably brief stints. Neither of them are hitting anywhere near what the Marlins had been hoping for - the offense is being carried mainly by Arraez and 2021 World Series MVP Jorge Soler. Soler hasn't exactly been the most consistent player from one year to the next, but he's been swinging a pretty hefty power bat for the 2023 Marlins - he's hit 20 HRs, the rest of the team has hit 48.

Monday's game would normally be Edward Cabrera's turn, but he just went on the IL with "shoulder impingement," and when did "impingement" become a thing anyway? You follow the sport long enough, and you end up learning more and more new terms for injuries.  (Never mind all the strange body parts that turn out to have very specific names of their own.)

Anyway, Monday will be a bullpen day for Miami. Bryan Hoeing did start a couple of games earlier this season, but he hasn't thrown more than 34 pitches in a game since May 6.

Last year's Cy Young winner, Sandy Alcantara gets the start on Wednesday afternoon, and while the 2-5, 4.97 record won't get him too many votes this season, he's really not pitching all that badly. Obviously he hasn't been nearly as good as he was a year ago, but It doesn't seem like he should be giving up twice as many runs. There's something fishy about his results, which is fitting - this team did choose to name itself after a fish. But it's still weird.

Well, it's south Florida. Weirdness is to be expected.

Matchups

Mon 19 June - Berrios (7-4, 3.28) vs Hoeing (1-1, 3.12)
Tue 20 June - Kikuchi (6-2, 4.31) vs Perez (4-1, 1.80)
Wed 21 June - Gausman (6-3, 3.01) vs Alcantara (2-5, 4.97)