Results tagged ‘ Josh 'Wheels' Willingham ’
Just win baby
At the end of the third week of the season, the Marlins are still clinging to a first-place lead. Allbeit the slimest of slim leads- 1/2 game. A lead is a lead is a lead though. Just ask the 5 teams that have lost to the Marlins by 1 run. 5-0 in 1 run games….including 2 wins on the 4-2 homestand. Good teams find ways to win the close ones. Although you won’t win many
games when you kick the ball around the infield in ways that would make David Beckham jealous, like Saturday night, winning when your team isn’t playing at its best is always a good thing. Welcome back to Florida Wes Helms!!! It was good to see Wes settling back in and getting a game-winning (my goal in life is to banish the term ‘walk-off’ from ever being used again) hit on Saturday. You can tell that he has great chemistry with the team by their reaction and compliments of him. Getting him back was a heads-up move by Beinfest. You need verteran leaders on a young squad, and they don’t come any more professional than Wes.
The only game I saw from start to finish since Tuesday was the gem that Olsen (3-0) pitched today, so here are just a few random thoughts and obersvations I have made….mostly from the box score.
- Uggla might not be flashy, but he is getting on base. Despite the fact that he is getting less hits than this blog page, he is walking, so it’s not all bad. Hang in there Dan
- After another triple this weekend, I think my Josh ‘Wheels’ Willingham comment might have been a Nostradamus-like prediction.
- Smoltz has still got it. 10 K’s in 5 innings? wow
- I’m not worried about the decline in Olsen’s strikeouts. I think he is learning that as long as you keep your walks and ERA low, strikeouts don’t matter. Sometimes it’s best to let the hitter get himself out.
- Let Badenhop pitch. He got squeezed by the ump a few times from what I saw of his start on Saturday. He deserved a better fate. Let’s see this kid for another few weeks before we get a feel for him
- Doug Waecter. I know I spelled his name wrong, but I don’t care. There wasn’t a better arm they could call up from the minors to replace Lee Gardner? I know he pitched 2 scoreless innings this weekend, but I don’t like the former (Devil) Ray at all. Not at all, not at all, not at all.
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Throw your fastball inside to lefties Tankersley. You have a good breaking ball, but if you keep slinging it across the zone, hitters will sit on it and lay off it when it is a ball. Mix in a few more fastballs, and you will do better. Great job on Sunday by Tank to come back and get Johnson after what happened on Friday!!!!!!
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Hanley Ramirez is quickly becoming one of the best offensive players in the league…..if he isn’t already. The front office might have been right when they said they have the best SS in the division. We are watching a superstar in the making right now. Enjoy it, and hopefully Hanley will be here for years to come.
So the homestand was a good one. 4-2 to boost the record to 11-7. Now a tough road trip with 2 apeice in Pittsburgh and Atlanta. Then a weekend series in Milwaukee. I’d like to see 5-2, but 4-3 would be good enough for me. The Marlins have struggled over the years in PNC Park, but are facing 2 pitchers there who haven’t won a game yet. Tough to ever expect a sweep, but still…..
When the Marlins schedule came out, I looked at the first 20 games and said that with so many against the Nats and Pirates out of the gate, that it was possible to get off to a good start. It’s going to be a tougher road over the next month with games against the Braves, Mets, Brewers, Phillies, Dodgers and Diamonbacks. If this team was going to do anything this year, a good start against this part of the schedule was imperitive, and they have responded thus far. Even if they are playing teams that were picked to finish last, they were too, and they still had to win against the bad teams. They did win a series against the Braves, and did tatoo Hudson in between, but let’s see them do it again. It’s tough to take a team’s temperature after each game, so I give it till the end of May, early June before we can really evaluate where the Marlins stack up against the rest of the NL. I think they’ll still be hanging around then, but we will see. First place fish are hitting the road! Let’s come back 5 games over.
P.S. As I finish typing this, I have SportsCenter on in the background, and not even a mention of the Marlins in the whole show. Unbelievable. The average sports fan who turns to ESPN to get their scores has no clue that this team is doing so well early on. Considering their payroll and lack of respect, one would think that a highlight of them winning would be a good story. Not to mention Hanley Ramirez’s 2 homers, and Olsen’s seven fantastic innings. I’m not asking for a whole 7 minute package talking about this team, but would a 20 second highlight be too much to ask? I guess the suits at the Entertainment and Sports Television Network would rather show arena football highlights. It makes me sick. Not just about the Marlins, but overall, ESPN the last 10 years or so has degraded so much. Take your X-games and shove them up your teleprompters.
Now THAT’S the way to play the game!
The Florida Marlins opened up their 6 game homestand on Monday night with a win, and an impressive one at that. No longballs needed tonight. Just an offense taking advantage of the few opportunities they had against good starting pitching, and forcing the bullpen into mistakes. All that in a minute, but the main theme of tonight was the ace of the staff, Scott Olsen, continuing to improve on and off the mound. The box score won’t do him justice, as he gave up about 3 bloop hits that shouldnt have counted. One number I loved to see though was 0….as in ZERO walks. Not only by Olsen, but the rest of the pitchers as well. Are you kidding me???!!!! No walks from a starter with a history of control problems? Another big step for Ollie tonight. He was throwing strikes, making hitters get themselves out, effecient…he was THE MAN. When Uggla bobbled the ball in the seventh inning however, I almost
expected Olsen to lose his cool like he has done in the past. And on the way back to the dugout Olsen did raise his fist to Dan…but lo and behold, it was for a hand pound! not a knuckle sandwich to the face!!! The Scott Olsen of the last couple years would have lost his cool and gone off the deep end. Guess Scott took some anger management classes over the Winter. Whatever he did, it seems to be working. I look forward to watching him take the mound next series against the Nats. If Ollie continues to pitch effeciently and deep into games, the Marlins are going to hang around with the rest of the division for quite some time.
Offensively tonight was all about fundamentals. Josh stole 2 bases, scored on a double by Jacobs (which he hit the other way). If Jake had tried to pull that ball, it woulda been an easy out at first and the end of the inning, so great job by Mike. A triple by Josh ‘Wheels’ Willingham scored Uggla (who is looking a little better at the plate). And how about the back to back 2-out walks with the bases loaded!!!! And Hanley’s came after being down 0-2! All in all the Marlins’ BB/K ratio was even at 6 each, but if you discount the strikeouts by the pitcher and Andino’s pathetic at-bat, you have 6 walks…and only 3 k’s by your regular lineup! That’s the way to approach the plate, take pitches, put the ball in play and don’t strikeout. A very encouraging sign. Hopefully it continues.
Tough to complain after this game (I am really pumped up about this win, and you should be too if you watched the game and understand how crisp and mature this team looked tonight) but the Oscar the Grouch in me says that there are 2 gripes I should have.
- Why why why why why was Olsen taked out after 7 innings? I know our pen held down the fort but he was under 85 pitches, why not throw him out there? With the way he has going, the Braves couldn’t really touch him and when a pitcher is feeling it like he was tonight, you ride it as long as you can. Unless you need to pinch-hit for him. I’m normally OK with that…unless the pinch hitter is called on to bunt…WHY WASTE A POSITION PLAYER TO BUNT????? Let the pitcher do it and throw him back out there for the next inning. Which leads to my second point….
- Robert Andino has won a game for the Marlins this year with a game-ending (not walk-off; I hate that term almost as much as I hate the word ‘stuff’ being used to describe a pitcher’s pitches) homerun, but if he is going to play a utility role on this team (even if he would rather play his natural position) then he must execute the small ball. Especially when you are up there for a pitcher, you had better lay the bunt down, otherwise you just wasted a bench player and out for your club…which is exactly what happened. 2 fouls and a called strike 3 and….”grab some pine, MEAT!” I’m sure Andino is more than capable to bunt, but little things like that drive me cukoo.
- One more sidebar…..Hey Jeremy Hermida (spelled h-E9-r-m-i-d-a), can you TRY to hit a ground ball to first with a runner on 2nd and no outs? That moves him to third and makes it easier for him to score, you know. I didn’t even see him attempt to hit that ball that way. You are better than that Jeremy. I know you can do it b/c I’ve seen you do it before….but where was it in the 6th inning tonight?
So here we are, 8-5, still in first place, and off to a good start on the homestand!!!! Whoo-Hooo!!! Smoltzie and Hudson the next 2 games…let’s get a split against the tough duo.
If the fish can play games the rest of the year like they did tonight, they’ll be in and win a lot of them. Keep it up guys!!!
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