April 23, 200917 yr We should not hate on our fellow teammates. Have faith my brothers. Tomorrow's another game. Tomorrow is a day for redemtion. We have JJ on the mound. We have faith in all our pitchers, all our hitters, no matter who they are. Once they put on a marlins jersey, they are one, and we cannot single each individual out. Lets avoid calling guys like Ricky "crapola" for he is a part of this 11-4, NL East leading team. I do not give a rats a** what our individual stats are, all I care about is the W at the end, and we have been able to do well this season. Lets not look down upon what we have done bad, but rather think of what we have done good, and further upon that. We have had great defense, speed has been amazing this year, our starting pitching for the most part has been able to keep us in ballgames until the very last inning, and our hitters have been great with RISP and getting guys to get the right hits when we need them. All we need to do is believe, our team is great this year, everybody is healthy, everybody is in it for the long haul, the 162 games. We cannot base a season on these 15 friggin games, its a long a** season. These kind of threads are very premature. I believe Ricky will get his act together, I believe JJ will once again be dominant, I believe Chris Volstad will continue to be his dominant self, getting himself out of jams. I feel Anibal will revert to his 2006 self. I feel Miller will finally show why we traded a star like Cabrera for him, and that he will get that control down and emerge as a star sooner rather than later. The bullpen will keep us in games, and with our great late in game players, we cannot lose. Lindstrom finds his control, and harnases his 99 MPH fastball into becoming the most lethal player in baseball. I feel Hanley will be Hanley, that Maybin will go back to what he was in September of last year, that Hermida will finally become that line drive, in the gaps hitter we all hoped for. Cantu will get healthy, and will anchor this team. Cody will stay hot and become that 30+ home run guy with clutch hits and great fielding. Boni will cut down on the K's, and will get on base with his good fielding. John Baker will still continue to handle our pitching staff great, and will still be that great contact hitter that we need at the top of the lineup. All that is needed is faith people, don't give up hope. Its early, and as fans we should expect the best in our players. This is the year, and all our players will come through and each will be instrumental in our quest for first a division title and eventually a WS Title. GO MARLINS! And then we can wake up and realize that about half of these things will not happen. See, this is Mr. Pessimist. Well...c'mon.
April 23, 200917 yr Chien-Ming Wang, Cole Hamels, CC Sabathia, Carlos Zambrano, Tim Lincecum. As we all know, these guys are all "crapola," as well. :lol Didn't Lincecum just pitch eight scoreless innings his last start?
April 23, 200917 yr Was he really that bad today. What was his stat line? Well as previously stated he has had a bad April before but picked it up and became a much better pitcher in May, June and July. Give him time not everyone starts out hot.
April 23, 200917 yr Chien-Ming Wang, Cole Hamels, CC Sabathia, Carlos Zambrano, Tim Lincecum. As we all know, these guys are all "crapola," as well. :lol Didn't Lincecum just pitch eight scoreless innings his last start? Yes. And despite that, he still has a 1.53 WHIP & opponents are hitting .292 off of him. But I guess we should expect that out of him, as well, this year. :whistle
April 23, 200917 yr Chien-Ming Wang, Cole Hamels, CC Sabathia, Carlos Zambrano, Tim Lincecum. As we all know, these guys are all "crapola," as well. :lol Didn't Lincecum just pitch eight scoreless innings his last start? Yes. And despite that, he still has a 1.53 WHIP & opponents are hitting .292 off of him. But I guess we should expect that out of him, as well, this year. :whistle Yes, his 3.86 ERA and 12.9 SO/9 are terrible. I would say Ricky as been just a little bit worse so far.
April 23, 200917 yr Last year, Nolasco started off slow. He's obviously a slow starter. With his stuff and command, I'm sure he'll pick it up. I really hate this argument, since a lot of credit for Ricky's success went to his new-found cutter and splitter. (This isn't really directed at you, just a general statement, but a lot of people are saying that and you're the latest so you get quoted) Yeah but he really didn't gain control of those pitches until June. Through May, he had a 37/21 K/BB then went on to post a 193/20 K/BB for the rest of the year.
April 23, 200917 yr Chien-Ming Wang, Cole Hamels, CC Sabathia, Carlos Zambrano, Tim Lincecum. As we all know, these guys are all "crapola," as well. :lol Didn't Lincecum just pitch eight scoreless innings his last start? Yes. And despite that, he still has a 1.53 WHIP & opponents are hitting .292 off of him. But I guess we should expect that out of him, as well, this year. :whistle Yes, his 3.86 ERA and 12.9 SO/9 are terrible. I would say Ricky as been just a little bit worse so far. Still doesn't take away from the fact that he's been nothing more than average, thus far. He had 1 great start, and 2 bad ones. And the other 4 you didn't mention...2 of those guys are doing worse than Ricky. Point being that it is early, and there are plenty of aces struggling. I just don't see how some of you are ready to start worrying about him. I'd give it a couple more starts, at least.
April 23, 200917 yr BTW, let's not single out Nolasco. Almost the entire pitching staff has been highly disappointing. Especially JJ's start against the Mets! Yeah because one good start is really indicative of how the staff is doing altogether. I'm not saying they can't do better. They can, and that is why I am disappointed. Yeah, they won 11 games, but the outcomes of some of those games don't tell the whole story. Do you really believe that our starters are pitching as well as they can? If not, you know where I am coming from. If so, you are wrong. I know I made the comment about JJ as if to rival your opinions but I am in agreement that our staff can perform much better. Both JJ and Volstad have won a couple of games and have sub-3 ERA's however Volstad has struggled both times against the Nats and likewise JJ got battered for 6 against them last time out, although he did settle down and finish strongly. My analysis of this is that JJ began the season with 2 outstanding games and so the law of averages suggests even aces get hit hard every now and again. And regarding Volstad, even when he was successful last year, he often got into trouble, but one of his advantages is being able to limit the damage, so his start to this season is easily comparible with last year - good results, achieved difficultly. Nolasco has not had a good start yet and we all know he can pitch 10x better. We need to give him another couple of starts where he performs poorly before setting off the alarm bells. Anibal has had 3 decent starts and despite being quite hittable early on, I am greatly encouraged by his performances. Finally Andrew Miller ??? Question marks sum him up perfectly. He has the ability but has not shown much of it at the Major League level and his 1 start this year was bad. The injury may have been playing a part so some patience is needed before fully evaluating him once he gets a few more starts in. All in all, its been a mixed bag for our rotation so far, but look around the league and you will see many other examples of pitchers who are struggling early on who normally dominate.
April 23, 200917 yr BTW, let's not single out Nolasco. Almost the entire pitching staff has been highly disappointing. Especially JJ's start against the Mets! Yeah because one good start is really indicative of how the staff is doing altogether. I'm not saying they can't do better. They can, and that is why I am disappointed. Yeah, they won 11 games, but the outcomes of some of those games don't tell the whole story. Do you really believe that our starters are pitching as well as they can? If not, you know where I am coming from. If so, you are wrong. I know I made the comment about JJ as if to rival your opinions but I am in agreement that our staff can perform much better. Both JJ and Volstad have won a couple of games and have sub-3 ERA's however Volstad has struggled both times against the Nats and likewise JJ got battered for 6 against them last time out, although he did settle down and finish strongly. My analysis of this is that JJ began the season with 2 outstanding games and so the law of averages suggests even aces get hit hard every now and again. And regarding Volstad, even when he was successful last year, he often got into trouble, but one of his advantages is being able to limit the damage, so his start to this season is easily comparible with last year - good results, achieved difficultly. Nolasco has not had a good start yet and we all know he can pitch 10x better. We need to give him another couple of starts where he performs poorly before setting off the alarm bells. Anibal has had 3 decent starts and despite being quite hittable early on, I am greatly encouraged by his performances. Finally Andrew Miller ??? Question marks sum him up perfectly. He has the ability but has not shown much of it at the Major League level and his 1 start this year was bad. The injury may have been playing a part so some patience is needed before fully evaluating him once he gets a few more starts in. All in all, its been a mixed bag for our rotation so far, but look around the league and you will see many other examples of pitchers who are struggling early on who normally dominate. I agree with you. Our rotation, while it has not been stellar, save for JJ's Mets game, has been serviceable, save for the last pass through. I hope the trend of giving up runs early ends, and it is only a momentary blip. In my opinion, they are still young, which leads to a bit of inconsistency. They all have a boatload of potential, and some, like JJ, harvest that potential more often than not. But there is still a learning curve. For instance, if slow starts are going to be a career trend for Ricky, that is something he is going to need to work on.
April 23, 200917 yr That's only looking at the stats that Ricky did (marginally) better than JJ in. That's looking at the rate stats that people actually look at. That's his "line". And once again, WHIP (which I consider the most important stat of how a pitcher did) was much more than marginal. JJ's WHIP was a bit better than average, Noly's WHIP was the 2nd best in the league. WHIP is a good stat but a major flaw in it is that it considers walks, singles, doubles, triples and homers all the same and that's obviously not a good idea. OPS allowed is much better.
April 23, 200917 yr So I read (online) in the Sun-Sentinel that Ricky is aware of his slow start and his remarks seem to indicate he will be taking a proactive approach in trying to solve that problem. That is encouraging, because he could have easily said "it is what it is" and think that it will sort itself out in the end. Which I believe would solve nothing. Or at least solve it slowly.
April 23, 200917 yr Ricky did have a better K/BB ratio than JJ did in 06. And Ricky right now has a .391 BABIP. That's not going to keep happening. He'll be fine, I promise. He doesn't have to change a thing. If his BABIP was the .298 it's been for his career nobody would be worried.
April 23, 200917 yr Nolasco's expected BABIP right now would be .410. He's giving up a huge amount of line drives and need to stop throwing so many hittable balls. He's fine for the most part and it certainly should drop with time.
April 23, 200917 yr I see a lot of people in this thread complaining about our pitchers giving up runs to the Nationals...you guys need to realize that they have a pretty decent offense. Its their pitching staff (starters AND bullpen) that is causing them to lose games. Now, I'm not saying they're a good team, way too many holes to fix in one season, and their pitchers won't take them anywhere...but their offense should never be a problem this season. They will score runs, they will score runs off of good pitchers and off of bad ones. Don't worry about "Volstad struggling against the Nationals" or "JJ giving up 6 runs to THE NATIONALS". They're a good offense, not one that you can pick at to say a pitcher should shut out everytime.
April 23, 200917 yr panic! panic! panic! thats all people do. nalsco is pitching like sh*t lets jump on him maybin isnt hitting lets jump on him hanley isnt hitting wait.. why isnt anyone critizing him.
April 23, 200917 yr panic! panic! panic! thats all people do. nalsco is pitching like sh*t lets jump on him maybin isnt hitting lets jump on him hanley isnt hitting wait.. why isnt anyone critizing him. He gets ripped on in the game threads.
April 23, 200917 yr panic! panic! panic! thats all people do. nalsco is pitching like sh*t lets jump on him maybin isnt hitting lets jump on him hanley isnt hitting wait.. why isnt anyone critizing him. There was a thread about it too. Everyone needs to calm down.
April 23, 200917 yr And Ricky right now has a .391 BABIP. That's not going to keep happening. He'll be fine, I promise. He doesn't have to change a thing. If his BABIP was the .298 it's been for his career nobody would be worried. Since you pulled the "luck" card out it should be noted that if anything he was "lucky" in '08 because his babip was lower than what it should have been based on the number line drives he allowed.
April 24, 200917 yr panic! panic! panic! thats all people do. nalsco is pitching like sh*t lets jump on him maybin isnt hitting lets jump on him hanley isnt hitting wait.. why isnt anyone critizing him. He gets ripped on in the game threads. I think the game threads are made for our ridiculous kneejerk reactions, tbh. I get a kick out of broadcasting my feelings.
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