ATLANTA -- With their playoff hopes dashed, the Marlins will have to settle for second best.

 

Second in the division, that is.

 

By losing a heartbreaker, 1-0, to the Braves on Saturday night, the Marlins slid to third place because the Phillies edged the Expos.

 

The Marlins now trail the Phillies by one game with seven to go.

 

Since going 11 games over .500 (76-65) on Sept. 14, the Marlins have fallen into a slump. They have dropped 10 of 13 games, including a season-worst five straight.

 

"We're just not playing well," catcher Paul Lo Duca said. "We need to do something to finish up strong. This is not the way you want to end the season."

 

The 2003 World Series champions would take pride in finishing second and being as many games over .500 as possible. At 79-75, the Marlins are three wins away from posting the third winning season in franchise history.

 

In their 12th season, the Marlins have the unique distinction of becoming World Series champions in their only two winning seasons (1997 and 2003). Both times they captured the Wild Card and then went on to win the Series.

 

"We're still playing," Lo Duca said. "We still want to play. We have pride, and we want to finish the season out with some pride. We want to finish in second place, too. I think we are a tired team, but we need to try to snap out of it. We've played a lot of games in a row. We need something to go our way. Maybe a break here or there and we can get rolling again and finish the season strong."

 

September hasn't been kind to the organization.

 

The Marlins entered the month needing a hot streak to make the postseason. For a while, they were doing it. But their comeback quest was interrupted by two hurricanes, which caused a nightmarish rescheduling of 30 games in 27 days. In that span, the Marlins played three doubleheaders in 11 days, depleting their pitching staff. Four times they've been forced to use an emergency starter, and they went 1-3 in those games.

 

Plus, the rescheduling took away three home games, forcing the Marlins to play one of their "home games" as part of a Sept. 10 doubleheader with the Cubs at Wrigley Field, and two games against the Expos were played at U.S. Cellular Field in Chicago.

 

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Not that it really matters but we should finish in second place.

finishing over .500 and in 2nd place legitimately makes us a 'contender' we stayed in the race till the end and died fighting. finishing 80-82 will make us a crappy 2rd place team whose ineptness was revealed late in the season

If this slide keeps up it's really gonna put a damper on what was othewise a fine season.

Goals:

1.Finish in 2nd in the Division

2. Finish over .500