SixYearItch

I hope Ruggiano can finish strong. Apart from Giancarlo's May, he's been the most positive story of the yr for us. Can't help but admire his tenacity in the clutch, am rooting very hard for him to succeed and be one of our mainstays next yr. Love his cute family.

Obviously they've taken a step back This will make sense only with a few decent free agent pickups........Bourn, Upton, etc. They've got the money to spend with the salary they've cleared. We'll see what they do. The rest of the season to me is all about how our "major league" ready pickups perform on the mound, whether Lomo can get his head out of his arse and start hitting for average as he should, and if JJ can right the ship. Other than that, who cares.

whether that was Ozzie or Buck's call on that bunt in the 9th.... just worst call ever. Not pleased with it, but not terribly upset. Was far more fearful of Buck grounding into a double play

I think the front office will know what to do after the Braves take us to the woodshed next week. It'll be a demolition, similar to what happened the last played they played us. The disgust in the front office will be palpable, and we'll get a taste of it on the Franchise, two episodes from now. I've got my DVR on record.

Hanley and Bell for Upton and Drew is starting to look more rational.

Mentioning Stanton was just the media being in stir it up mode..what else is new. Giancarlo ain't going anywhere. Hanley on the other hand, I'd be all ears. Boy would I love to see the Mariners send us King Felix for him. We're not going to re-sign Anibal so I see it being open season on him too.

I too am looking for a reason to be optimistic. We are lucky to be where we are, only 3 games under 500 given the way we've largely sucked this yr, except for Giancarlo's single handed lifting of this team in May. The main problem I see is that the Braves have pulverized us so far this season, have plenty of games left with us this yr, and I wouldn't be surprised to see them continue to hand us our lunch. We should be able to stand in okay against everyone else remaining on the schedule, but I'm thinking our trouble with the Braves will keep us from mounting a push.

Sure this team has been terribly disappointing But the worst disappointment has been what has happened to our supposed franchise linchpins...Hanley and JJ. How ordinary they've become. Hanley has morphed into a garden variety mistake prone 250 hitter. But what JJ has become is truly the most hurtful to this team. From a #1 starter, the stopper, who seemed truly a threat to throw a no-no everytime out...remember how unhittable he was last yr before he went out, he's become truly ordinary and very hittable . The unhittable slider and fastball with great movement is gone. Our staff is a lineup of #4 and #5 starters, Buerhle a #3. It's not a staff that you can throw up against an elite team in a important series, June showed us that. Bells performance has been a season crusher. But the morphing in ordinariness you see in Hanley and JJ I think has taken the heart out of this team.

Heath Bell sucks right now but there comes a point where you have to wonder wtf is Ozzy thinking still throwing him out there. In between Ozzy still having Bell close games and having Hanley in the top third of our line up you have to wonder what goes through this guys head. Ozzie's on automatic pilot right now, as far as this season is concerned, he's already checked out. Now he's just trying to prove a point with Beinfest, Samson and Loria about how f***ed up this team is. Showtime will tell all.

Simply maddening to me that Cishek pitches to one guy in the 8th, STL best hitter, strikes him out, no reason to save him being the All Star break, but you don't see him in the 9th. Instead, Bell, a predictable there he blows again. And Ozzie in the dugout paralyzed. Bell has singlehandedly torched our season. If he does his job, inspite of all the other ineptness surrounding this team we're securely in wild card mode. Screw him. With maybe the exception of a few isolated appearances, the big turd can't locate more than one breaking ball around the strike zone to save his life. Total suicide to have a one pitch closer, and that pitch being a fastball with little to no movement. Why the hell is it that only Guillen and the blowhards in the front office can't see this? We grind so hard to get to the 9th inning with the lead, only to see our opposition literally salivating when we send our worst pitcher out to the mound to try to close. WTF. Kudos to Giancarlo, Ruggiano, Dobber, Buerhle. You've all done your job.The rest of this team, including Ozzie, suck so bad it's just too painful to watch anymore.

There goes Ozzie again, with his don't put it all on Bell bs He had a lead which for the upteenth time he gave up (or forced others like Cishek in to try to clean up his mess) . Ozzie can point fingers all he wants at Sanchez, Webb, Gaudin who are all pitching like dog crap, but Bell's job is to make sure that games that are set up to be in our win column, after all the bs pitching that may have occurred in the game, stay in the win column. Even his saves almost half the time come off as accidental. The dude has a putrid ERA approaching 7. Come up man! The ship is capsizing, and Ozzie's at the wheel guaranteeing for sure that there's only one place this ship is heading.... where Luca Brasi and Osama sleep.

I'll be honest. For the last six weeks, I've shut the TV in the 9th inning anytime Bell is coming in. Simply won't put myself through his s..t. I'll wait 30 minutes, occupy my time doing whatever, and then nervously go online and check the scoreboard praying we somehow held on. Even in the wins I'd just check the at bat recap in his 9th inning and laugh out loud what he'll typically put this team through even when he gets the third out. This is what I go through as a Marlins fan. How is this finding joy in rooting for my team. This game was the worst feeling in the world. After Reyes hit the HR I shut the TV off. I flat out knew Bell was going to blow this, that he'd give up the big blast to Braun, Ramirez or Hart with that belt high straight arrow cheeseball, er fastball, that he serves up at the most inopportune of times. So I waited my 30 minutes, confident I'd see 13-12, and when I flicked my computer on sure enough it stared right back at me. Surprise! Alas not really. Just a brutal loss in a season of unending brutal losses, this one the worst.This reign of terror must come to an end now.

Watching this team try to get a run is like a constipated person trying force a turd into the tidy bowl..........after a lot of grunting and sweating it out just can't do it.

You're all crazy in your race to trade Lomo His HR rate this year projects to 30 over the course of a full season. His BA this year was freakish......could easily seeing him hitting 280 Lets face it...the veteran collapse put way too much pressure on Stanton and Morrison to carry us at the plate. I don't expect that to. happen this year. Hanley and the one or two free agent pickups will afford both far better protection. I'd be surprised if Lomo isn't at least a 3WAR next year. This team needs a left hand power bat and Lomo is it. Also projects very well at 1st Gaby and Yelich can be the crux of the package for Gio, and I still think we can get him. How can you dismiss his BA as freakish, yet present him as a lock to keep up that HR pace? Neither ever happened before this year. I don't present Lomo as a lock to hit 30 HRS but projecting from his 2011 season it certainly makes it seem credible he can hit 30. His body is "filling out", gaining the muscle mass, to the point where I think he certainly projects to be closer to hitting 30 than 15 any given year. Over a full year I'd actually be satisfied with anything over what he hit this year, as long as he gets his BA to where's its traditionally been, at least in the 275, 280 range. Where the significant improvement is needed is RISP where he completely fell off the wagon, which I think was partly due to all the pressure he had to carry around of being the no. 2 producer when the rest of the team, apart from Stanton, crapped out. Tough yr for him, losing his father, first full season, with the team falling apart around him. With more support around him next year, I honestly see him putting it all together in 2012. Utterly crazy to trade him when we otherwise have nobody like him in our everyday lineup.

You're all crazy in your race to trade Lomo His HR rate this year projects to 30 over the course of a full season. His BA this year was freakish......could easily seeing him hitting 280 Lets face it...the veteran collapse put way too much pressure on Stanton and Morrison to carry us at the plate. I don't expect that to. happen this year. Hanley and the one or two free agent pickups will afford both far better protection. I'd be surprised if Lomo isn't at least a 3WAR next year. This team needs a left hand power bat and Lomo is it. Also projects very well at 1st Gaby and Yelich can be the crux of the package for Gio, and I still think we can get him.

Gaby, Matty D, Peterson and Yelich for Gio Yeh, I said Yelich.......Gio won't go for anything less than at least one A prospect and Yelich is it. We absolutely cannot trade Lomo.

New MLBTR article says that Marlins/Red Sox are trade candidates for Gio. And even better, it alludes to the fact that the A's would want mainly prospects. I'd give up Matty D and some others in a package for Gonzalez in a heartbeat if it means that we can keep LoMo. If we bring in Aramis Ramirez or Grady Sizemore, Emilio can play the other position. This is what I was hoping for...would not trade Lomo, we're not getting Fielder so forget it. I'd load up the pile for Gio....Take Gaby, CC, Matt D, Bryon Peterson, Hand and Rasmussen...if all need to go then good bye, all club controlled. So Billy B, go play moneyball.

they traded away their second-best position player :lol and their starting center fielder :lol for almost nothing in return. Yup, Infante, Dunn, Webb and Mujica are "almost nothing." Nobody said ESPN writers were smart. Typical ESPN when it comes to the Marlins, always a dig, always a slight, always just plain stupid ignorance. When Gammonds left that was the end of this team ever getting straight and fair coverage without the BS. It's going to be a hoot when ESPN and Fox, and their play by play guys who never see us and know virtually nothing about our team other than having heard about Hanley and this dude, JJ have to start learning about us when, come playoff time, they'll have to be calling our games. It'll be sweet.

He's been hitting the ball harder and had a couple of hits last night. This thread would have made a lot more sense a week ago. Now, I'm hoping he's finally getting out of his slump. Yeh, he's hitting the ball harder. He's hitting nice hard grounders to third, short and second, and grounders up the middle, some hard enough to sneak through The ones that don't get turned into DP's. He'd be getting out of his slump if we witnessed even just a few line drive outs to left, center or right field, you know, the kind that Bonafacio has demonstrated he can hit. Where's the power in Hanley's bat ? He's showing none of it. Hanley is an infield pepper machine, making sure that every one on the diamond gets their share of grounders to field, heck, even the pitcher. To me, he's performed at the plate so far like a poor man's Cameron Maybin (the version we experienced, who seemed to never get the ball out of the infield) So far, considering how he's performed to date this year, Hanley's close to being the most unproductive every day bat in MLB. He is absolutely killing us.. Obviously that's not to say he won't break out of it (he is and should too good a hitter to stay like this), but to me really no sign of it yet.

I'm not blaming the front office, they took a stab at it and it hasn't worked out, but they need to recognize it now and let him go, $7M check m hand. I would have loved Garland but we had no chance to get him. So who is everybody thinking was available...Bartolo Colon ? For those who recall, Vazquez to me is identical to the flier we took on Al Leiter years back when we brought him back for a second time with the club, for about the same kind of money on a one year deal. He sucked of course, ERA over 6 and we dumped him in June. No way we can afford to wait that long with Vazquez. He needs to go now. He simply can't locate much of anything, falls behind counts on mostly everyone, and is, to put it lightly, very hittable. It's just tough watching him pitch.

Edwin is a damn rock and Hanley is hard to watch. Five at bats and can't hit the ball out of the infield Hanley definitely is ghastly to watch

People voted the bullpen because we've seen Coghlan make amazing catches and get some hits before. Last season, we lost because of injuries and a terrible bullpen mostly. It's just amazing how much of a turnaround trading for Webb/Mujica/Dunn and signing Choate did. We've gone from the worst bullpen in baseball to a top 10 'pen. Dunn was particularly impressive tonight, especially in mowing down McCann who always scares me. Real nice to have a power lefty out of the pen with a nasty slider. Only hope he can keep the walks down. .

35% of the runs the Marlins have given up so far have been unearned.....what an amazing stat for a team with a 4-3 record

Yea, of course we need Stanton, didn't realize how much though. It's alot of pressure on the big guy, hope he can handle it. But really, sad to say but the way this team fields and gives away outs, its unrealistic to think we'll be anything more than a 500 team. Really frustrating to have to watch this same kind of play year in and year out. JJ really got screwed again and Hanley does look every bit like the Jorge Cantu of shortstops. Ouch. I don't blame the bullpen, its a good crew.

Dominguez has looked good in ST so far: 16 PA | .308 AVG | HR | 12.5% BB% | 15.4% K% I know it's too early, but it's good to see Dominguez hitting well. He will definitely secure that spot. I hope he doesn't, I really want him to get more time in the minor leagues and make sure his bat is ready. If he's tearing up AA/AAA come June or July then bring him up, but there's zero reason to rush him and start the arbi clock before we're 100% certain he's ready. Dominguez will be at 3rd. The decision has already been made, as the front office has made any other alternative unacceptable by standing pat. Would you rather have Helms or Murphy at 3rd or Boni at 2nd ? I wouldn't. I'll take Dominguez's superior glove, and 12 HR's, 60 RBI's, 240 BA and 720 OPS and live with it.