Two theories:

 

1- It is almost always hot here, meaning the guys can get loose fast (even the older guys like Harvey/Mando/TJ). Advantage pitchers (home & visitors).

 

2- In the late innings, the opposing batters are starting to feel the SoFla heat. A 92 MPH fastball looks like 112. Advantage - Marlins (big time).

hmm good point. its true thohg we always usually have great closers. Urbina, Mando, TJ

ehh ...your reasoning is a litte shaky there .... basically you are saying that the only reason we have good closers is because we have hot temperatures.

 

I think that tj and armando are studs and they have gotten a second chance

Todd Jones, Benitez, Brian Harvey, Rob Nen and possibly Alfonseca, but that's it.

 

Braden Looper, Vlad Nunez, and others were all just garbage.

 

Trevor Hoffman doesn't count because he wasn't closing games for us at the time since he was just coming up.

Ummmm.....no. :plain

 

The lack of pressure down here from media and fans is a huge advantage.

 

If you blow a save down here no one cares.

 

Look at Uggy. Before the 2003 postseason he was lights out. During the 2003 postseason he was extremely shaky.

Urbina was pretty shaky in the 2003 regular season too. Like Mota most of this year, he seemed he always put 2 runners on base before recording the final out of an inning.

 

93 Harvey, 96 Nen, 04 Benitez, 05 Jones have been the only truly great seasons. The rest of had pretty run of the mill seasons as far as closers go.

We happen to breed fine pitchers in general. Look at some of the Pitchers we let loose like Penny and Dempster . . . ok not the best examples but they get the job done for such crappy teams.

Think it could be because we only seem to put a handful of "tough" saves in front of our closer?

 

Harvey and Benitez are the only closers we've had who "carried" the bullpen. Other than that, it's been business as usual. Alfonseca was good in his first stint as closer, but blowing saves on a bad team isn't memorable, that's why no one brings Vladimir Nunez' name up when talking about closers, it's like he didn't count.

wish we had a steady closer for more than a year

weve always had a pitchers park, a closer is a pitcher thus when we're home hes helped out, theres no need to go any further than that.

How could you guys forget Mantei? He was close to automatic for a spell in 98-99. A lot of it is just luck to get the right guy for the right price and pitching in that mammoth stadium. For a team with a short history the Marlins have also produced great base stealers too.

It's hard to say which out of TJ and Armando is better, because both have been pretty darn lights out. It was nice to hear that glove really pop when Armando hit it, but I feel just as confident with TJ out there.

Mantei could've been something had he stayed healthy, but the team wasn't any good at the time anyway, so he wouldn't have gotten much attention.

Just lucky I guess. :whistle