popeyethesailor

We really were a bit fortunate today though when Veras grabbed that liner totally as an instinctive reaction. Easily could of passed him and lead to runs for Colorado. Yeah not lucky catching that liner would maybe have cost Johnson a loss. Why are some guys bummed that Johnson AND Nolasco will miss the Braves series? Johnson yes ,but Nolasco has a 4.50 ERA which would be higher closer to 5 if not for those two incredible catches his last two games. Anibals pitching better

Wow is Johnson ever lucky Veras miracle catch

Last start it was Stanton who made a terrific catch to save runs (and the win) at the top of the wall off Harens shot and tonight it was Cody who made a great catch to save runs in deep center off Giambis blast. Ricky is one lucky dude. Good win for the Marlins who actually scored runs.

And Marinez is "credited" with the win...what a joke You wanna know what the real joke is? Ubaldo Jimenez comes out of this game allowing 5 earned runs and still 15-1, yet again no additional loss on his record. Oh yeah, and Sanchez comes out of this game on 6 IP and 2 ER, and doesnt come away with a win, that too. So once again... Whobaldo? Volstad has come out of several games pitching that good and LOST them so Sanchez not getting the win it could be worse. The offense has saved Sanchez 4 losses this year after he came out and the bullpen 14 out of his 15 inherited runners so he's pretty lucky actually. And Ubaldo is very fortunate to not get the loss. Many other pitchers around have pitched bad and avoided a loss which shows W-L records are WAY overrated.

And Marinez is "credited" with the win...what a joke

Looks like Volstad did well for New Orleans. 6 inns no runs a no decision with typical poor run support----zero. Him and West should be up

Low run support or not, Volstad was bad. Not getting run support doesn't give him the excuse to give a below average performance. Prior to his last start his ERA was between 4.15 and 4.45 mostly for the 16 starts which is in "quality start" range and not below average. . Plus he had a few runs score against him to inflate his ERA that should not have scored and still had I think 9 or 10 quality starts. Several double play balls that werent turned that should have been lead to earned runs, a passed ball called a wild pitch in Chicago, a fly ball caught in short center by the infielder that lead to an "infield sac fly", plus he was on the mound for Hanleys "lazy boot."- unusual stuff. Conine said on TV that Volstad was very much better than his numbers. Still improvement is needed but he was definitely not "bad". Yeah... a majority of the time early on in the season Volstad would have pitched a great game but the score would still be 1-1 going into the 7th and at that point Volstad should've been out of the game and he'd give up like 2 or 3 runs. Not creating excuses for Volstad's recent failures, just giving him a bit of credit. If he had run support his ERA would've floated around 3.50 to 4.00 but instead it sat in the 4.00s and then now it's running away to 5.00.. Youre first two sentences are exactly right. But bad run support wouldnt affect his ERA but it would his W-L record which probably could be 8-4 now instead of 4-8. Johnsons also gotten screws out of wins. He chould probably have 11 or even 12 by now.

Ani is pitching well above his norm right now and will regress. Also according to fangraphs over the last 3+ years hes had 32 inherited runners and only 3 have scored against him which is incredibly lucky and by far the best in all of baseball. Even though its a risk with his health also I guess we need to keep him. It's also a ridiculously tiny sample size. As a starter he doesn't really get a ton of inherited runners. 3+ years is not a tiny sample size, 3 or 4 months yes but not over 3 years. Hes had about the same average number of inherited runners left as any starter with the same number of innings pitched As a starter, you rarely inherit any runners. Who are you going to inherit them from? Ah, I see what you're saying now. You originally said that he had 32 inherited runners, when you meant he had left 32 inherited runners for the pen behind him. Yeah sorry I wasnt more clear. Having just 3 of the 32 score against him is incredibly lucky and helps his ERA a lot.

Ani is pitching well above his norm right now and will regress. Also according to fangraphs over the last 3+ years hes had 32 inherited runners and only 3 have scored against him which is incredibly lucky and by far the best in all of baseball. Even though its a risk with his health also I guess we need to keep him. It's also a ridiculously tiny sample size. As a starter he doesn't really get a ton of inherited runners. 3+ years is not a tiny sample size, 3 or 4 months yes but not over 3 years. Hes had about the same average number of inherited runners left as any starter with the same number of innings pitched just hardly any of them have scored against him

Ani is pitching well above his norm right now and will regress. Also according to fangraphs over the last 3+ years hes had 32 inherited runners and only 3 have scored against him which is incredibly lucky and by far the best in all of baseball. Even though its a risk with his health also I guess we need to keep him.

Low run support or not, Volstad was bad. Not getting run support doesn't give him the excuse to give a below average performance. Prior to his last start his ERA was between 4.15 and 4.45 mostly for the 16 starts which is in "quality start" range and not below average. . Plus he had a few runs score against him to inflate his ERA that should not have scored and still had I think 9 or 10 quality starts. Several double play balls that werent turned that should have been lead to earned runs, a passed ball called a wild pitch in Chicago, a fly ball caught in short center by the infielder that lead to an "infield sac fly", plus he was on the mound for Hanleys "lazy boot."- unusual stuff. Conine said on TV that Volstad was very much better than his numbers. Still improvement is needed but he was definitely not "bad".

Also I see Johnson is pitching a great game now and with Volstads crummy run support it would still be 0-0 after 4 or 5 inns and he would be pitching with a lot of stress instead of a more comfortable 4-0 lead. The mental aspect and pressure of this is huge.

According to fangraphs Volstads 8 losses he has had a pitiful total of 8 runs support. Thats 1.0 per game. Where did they get 4.40 on TV last night.? Is that over all 9 inns? It should be support when you are the pitcher of record . Later runs help if you can avoid a loss, ( like Anibal has 4 times this year) ,but nothing toward a win. Thats why the Marlins have lost 13 of his starts because they dont score for him That's hardly why the Marlins have lost 13 of his starts. In his 8 losses, he has a 6.07 ERA. Yeah 2 of the losses were bad and caused the high average, taking those 2 out the other 6 losses his ERA is a respectable 4.29. Some of the others were the bullpen blowing the lead so 8 of the losses were avoidable. Also 2 of the 8 runs were unearned that we scored so the offense really only scored 6 earned runs of the 8 total for him in these 8 losses 4 of his 8 losses were QS, which is average. That's not going to get it done. I dont think 4 QS out of 8 that result in all 4 being losses is average. Maybe 2 losses with 2 no decisions depending on run support. A lot of guys with just decent run support will win 2 of these along with 1 or 2 no decisions.

According to fangraphs Volstads 8 losses he has had a pitiful total of 8 runs support. Thats 1.0 per game. Where did they get 4.40 on TV last night.? Is that over all 9 inns? It should be support when you are the pitcher of record . Later runs help if you can avoid a loss, ( like Anibal has 4 times this year) ,but nothing toward a win. Thats why the Marlins have lost 13 of his starts because they dont score for him That's hardly why the Marlins have lost 13 of his starts. In his 8 losses, he has a 6.07 ERA. Yeah 2 of the losses were bad and caused the high average, taking those 2 out the other 6 losses his ERA is a respectable 4.29. Some of the others were the bullpen blowing the lead so 8 of the losses were avoidable. It's not entirely his fault that the bullpen blew his leads, but he wasn't going deep enough into games either. The 8 avoidable losses his average was 6 inns so it could have been another inning deeper to help

According to fangraphs Volstads 8 losses he has had a pitiful total of 8 runs support. Thats 1.0 per game. Where did they get 4.40 on TV last night.? Is that over all 9 inns? It should be support when you are the pitcher of record . Later runs help if you can avoid a loss, ( like Anibal has 4 times this year) ,but nothing toward a win. Thats why the Marlins have lost 13 of his starts because they dont score for him That's hardly why the Marlins have lost 13 of his starts. In his 8 losses, he has a 6.07 ERA. Yeah 2 of the losses were bad and caused the high average, taking those 2 out the other 6 losses his ERA is a respectable 4.29. Some of the others were the bullpen blowing the lead so 8 of the losses were avoidable. Also 2 of the 8 runs were unearned that we scored so the offense really only scored 6 earned runs of the 8 total for him in these 8 losses

According to fangraphs Volstads 8 losses he has had a pitiful total of 8 runs support. Thats 1.0 per game. Where did they get 4.40 on TV last night.? Is that over all 9 inns? It should be support when you are the pitcher of record . Later runs help if you can avoid a loss, ( like Anibal has 4 times this year) ,but nothing toward a win. Thats why the Marlins have lost 13 of his starts because they dont score for him

Just checked the numbers on Marlins.com for Volstad and Anibal whose pitching great. Amazing how the very same numbers there are-- hits given up, walks, strikeouts, WHIP, OBA, batting average against. More stolen bases and homers are a difference. Yet Anibals 7-4 and 3.35 very good and Volstad 4-8 and 4.78. Big difference. Must be Anibal throws a great pitch just when needed to get out of trouble and Volstad doesnt and also bad luck.

Not having a "put away pitch" with 2 strikes has been a real problem and hes not throwing enough cuveballs. Many of the steals have been due to the catcher dropping the ball (last night), or couldnt get the ball out of the glove well, or throws up high or just offline to second etc. The offense hardly ever scores early and never big for him to let him pitch more "comfortably" and his terrible run support is mostly why his record is so bad with the opposing pitchers always seem to pitch lights out against him. Many of the walks were on 3-2 pitches and fouling off more since he doesnt have a put away pitch and umpires missing a lot of strikes in his games but he still needs to get better command. They said it wasnt just one game but until now wasnt his ERA was under "quality start" numbers of 4.50? Its good to go and work to get better on things and better pitch selection and he'll be back up later this month.

Hope the offense gives Volstad 6 runs early within 3 inns for once and see what happens. Then with Johnson next we could sweep

Ricky had an interesting game for sure. That 1st inn sac fly was almost a grand slam. He went deep into counts several times even with a very generous umpire calling many balls strikes that werent strikes to help out big time. If he had a tight umpire like Coussins it would have been a very different game for him and the Marlins. And yet another home run given up. At least we avoided a sweep.

I really don't care if Brian Barden and Emilio Bonifacio can play multiple positions, one (or better yet, both) need to be called down to make room for Brett Carroll. It's a disgrace that Carroll isn't on the major league squad at this moment. The only reasons Brett Carroll sounds great is because he's not on the roster right now. He's a career 610 OPS hitter in the majors, though his OPS for the last two years is around .670. He's definitely more exciting than Mike Lamb in that he has shown to be capable of getting a big clutch hit every once in a while, but the numbers show that like a lot of other guys in the Marlins organization he's just not as good as we would like to believe he is. That's the great thing about baseball in that the numbers pretty accurately show just how well you've been doing, and they say that Carroll stinks, Volstad is average at best, Nolasco just isn't the pitcher he once seemed like he could be, etc. There's certainly a reason to believe that Carroll could provide more off the bench than the nothing we're currently getting, but it's hardly a tragedy that a guy who can't even OPS .700 isn't on this roster. The numbers don't accurately show AT ALL the truth about Volstad. He's much better than they show with the bad team the Marlins are with bad defense and he is a ground ball pitcher, bad run support and bad bullpen.

Leo Nunez has been about as good as the majority of closers in baseball. As they showed tonight, even KRod has his fair share of blown saves. Every closer blows saves; they're human. I'll take the trade. We actually won, and Jose Veras stepped up and pitched well. If the middle relief steps up, I'm not really all that worried about Leo. Hopefully I'm right because beginning next week, he'll be on my fantasy team. His peripherals say he'll be fine. His changeup just wasn't working as well as it normally is tonight. Needs to fall out of love with the changeup just like someone else needs to with the fastball IMO. Except his increase usage of change up is why he has continued to get better, both after coming here from the Royals and this year compared to last year. It's easily his best pitch. By using his change up more, his fast ball less, and basically ditching his slider, he has 1) Increased his strike outs, 2) Decreased his walks, and 3) Increased his ground ball rates thanks to it's movement. It's a win across the board yeah that article on Leo from fangraphs I posted recently pointed to the same thing. One thing I've heard Tommy mention during the broadchast is that at times Leo's changeup maybe gets a little too much velocity, not enough difference between it & his fastball. Thats also Volstads problem. His change up is also only 7 mph slower than his fastball just like Nunez. They both need to fix that.

We'll sweep if the offense can score more than usual for Volstad

2 more home runs thats 19 in 16 starts and a real problem . He's lucky the offense showed up or it would be another loss. Sweep.

Sanchez was lucky to avoid a loss with the way this team is hitting. Cantus slow roller up the middle with 2 outs allowed the tying run to score before the typical bullpen blow up. Plus Sanchez gave up 4 walks only 1 of which scored and got out of trouble some times so he didnt really pitch that good. Venable could have had a grand slam in the 6th except the sac fly was hit to dead center. If Volstad would have come out after 6 inns too then he would have given up 0 runs. Sanchez is just more fortunate than him and Johnson. How much longer will we deal with Stanton "learning?" Morrison up?