What a great time to be a Marlins Fan

This team continues to impress......both on and off the field.  Not only are the Marlins 22-14, leaders of the NL East and the second best record in the NL.  They signed Hanley long term.  It was like Christmas in May for us diehards.   I hear Marlins fans complain all the time that the reason you don't go to games is because you cannot count on your players being there.  Well, in the past 3 months, we have received a first place team, a NEW STADIUM, and OUR BEST PLAYER LOCKED UP FOR THE NEXT 6 YEARS.  Nothing left to complain about.  Time to stop whining about $21 million payrolls.  (Any educated business professional would want to get his payroll and other assets as cheaply as possible.  The fair market value of the Marlins players was always this year amongst the top in talent.  The $21 million is purely a function of the team playing the arbitration game, which is good business under the current collective bargining agreement.  It never reflected the talent.  People who associate talent levels with payrolls are ignorant and are taking the lazy approach to valuing their team.  Look at the Royals, Rangers, Orioles, Pirates, Giants, Nationals, .....ect and tell me that any of them are more talented, or have a deeper farm system.  Yet they all spend foolishly every year.)

The past 15 games or so, the Marlins starting pitching has been excellent.  We are no longer seeing the blowups that we saw early in the year.  Badenhop, Miller and Nolasco have each had quality outings their last couple of times out.  Nolasco and Miller looked just about unhittable the past 2 nights.  But almost equally as encouraging was how Mark Hendrickson gutted out his performance last week against the Brewers, only giving up one run on a night when he had nothing.  That is a great sign.  You are going to have your good nights.  But the good pitchers win when they don't have their best.

Now to another point I keep hearing on the radio down here. (on a side note, can someone please permanently disconnect WQAM from the radio.  they are a bore from morning until night.)  The Marlins have now played 36 games and I still hear the argument that they have not played anyone or that they teams they played have bad records.  Well, I decided to look into this.  I think the Nationals, Brewers and Pirates would love to have the Marlins removed from their records.  The Nationals would be one game under .500 and the Pirates and Brewers would have winning records if it were not for the Marlins.  What you never hear is that the Diamondbacks have not played anyone.  The comments there is always about the great young pitching staff or the talented young offense.  But if you look at the records of their opponents, it is only .485 compared to the Marlins .495.  They get to beat up on the Padres, Rockies and Giants without everyone saying they have not played anyone. 

Finally, I have to admit that I didn't like the Wes Helms signing when it first happened.  I thought that Cantu and Jacobs were playing great and McPherson is doing amazing down in AAA.  Thus Helms didn't make sense.  I could not have been more wrong.  He and Luis Gonzalez have added more to this team just in their professionalism and leadership than I could have imagined possible.  Just think, during this winning streak, Willingham and Jacobs (the middle of our lineup) have been out with normal nagging injuries.  Yet we score 7+ runs a night.  Another reason why Larry Beinfest and Mike Hill are the best at what they do.

Best front office + Potent offense + Best Bullpen in Baseball + Good Starting Pitching + Helms, Ross, Gonzalez as depth = A great summer. 

Lets keep it up.  And I hope to see a lot of you out with me at the next homestand. 

Auditor, that was one heck of a post. If I could give you one-hundred stars for that, I would because that is what it deserves. It was very informative, and quite touching I have to say. There isn't a darn thing I can add to that post to make it any better... because it is humanly impossible to do so. All I can say is go Marlins,

By the way, did I read in your post that you are going to attend one of the Royals games?

As you may or may not know, I volunteer for the Florida Marlins Community Foundation and I am sure you are aware of the Satury Night Raffles and all those other community events we do-- I work particualrly on saturdays and I just wanted to know if that is a game you plan to attend? Would be nice to meet a true Marlins fan I met on this board in person... I usually work sections 157, 154, 142 all handicap sections... I won't know which one I will be working at until game day, but if you can pass by any of those when gets open at 5pm, look out for me... Again, as you may or may not know I am wheelchair bound, the only volunteer who is so it may not be hard to recognize me, I will be in a motorized chair.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/standings?date=20080511&type=reg&br=9&year=2008&order=false&st=2

I live in cinci OH so its hard to be a Marlins fan all the way up here but no one can make fun of the marlins now!!

#1 in MLB!! 7 in a row baby!!

Im going to see them play the Reds in a few days

And now with a Red Sox loss tonight(Sun) the Marlins will have the BEST RECORD IN BASEBALL! Somebody please pinch me!

I know it is early in the season, and there is a long way to go against some relly solid competition especially all the games against the Mets and Phillies, but if anyone would have told me before the season that the Fish would have won 7 straight and have the best record in baseball NOT TO MENTION WE SIGN OUR STAR PLAYER TO A LONG TERM EXTENSION I would have told you to shut the f*$k up!

I can't help but think it would have been good to have Cabrera for the long term with our new stadium, but I feel confident that with Beinfest at the helm he made the right move by adding even more quality players to help fill that stadium in the future.

GO MARLINS!

People think we can keep this pace up, but I'm here as somone who has watched each and EVERY game why we can.

We have been without our best pure hitter (Josh Willingham) for the passed 12-14 games. Our best power hitter who was leading the league in homers before he got banged up (Mike Jacobs).

As far as pitching goes although our staff is doing a great job right now out best 3 starters are still on the DL Josh Johnson(Our best talent) Serbio Mitre (last years ace) and Aniabal Sanchez (No Hitter his rookie year) We also have key bullpen guys on the DL that will be huge contributors down the stretch.

The main piece of the Cabera Trade was Cameron Maybin and he is working his way up in the minors to become our every day center fielder and he is the NUMBER 1 Prospect in the majors.

This is why we will be better in 2 months than we are now...

OUR CURRENT STARTERS STARTERS IN 2 MONTHS

Amezenga Olsen Rameriz Olsen

Hermida Hendricson Uggla Hendricson

Rameriz Miller Willingham Johnson

Cantu Nolasco Jacobs Mitre

Uggla Badenhop Hermida Miller/Sanchez

Gonzo Maybin

Helms Cantu

Rebello Rebello

Pitcher Pitcher

Out current cleanup hitter will be batting seventh!!! this is the scariest line up in the Majors

GO FISHHH

AND START COMMING OUT TO THE BALL PARK FANS!!!