Marlins notebook

AKA: Stuff I research when I have nothing else to do

TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS

I wrote a piece on April 21, looking ahead at the golden opportunity that lay ahead of the Marlins, a 50-game stretch of schedule—nearly one-third of the season—littered with much of the flotsam and jetsam of the National and American leagues.

From May 5 through June 29, they wouldn’t play a single game against any of the Big 3 in the NL East. It would be one series after another against middling clubs and bottom feeders, highlighted (or would that be lowlighted?) by the stretch they’re in the middle of now, 9 consecutive games against the historically hapless Athletics, the constantly rebuilding Royals and the hugely disappointing White Sox.

Over the course of those 50 games, the Marlins would play 6 series against teams that are currently in last place and another 6 series against teams that are currently in 4th-place in their division. 12 of 16 series against 4th- and 5th-place teams.

Only 5 of the 16 series in that span are against teams that are currently above .500.

The 2-winningest NL teams they play over the nearly 2-month stretch are the league’s 2 biggest surprises: Arizona and Pittsburgh. Not a single game against the Braves, Mets or Phillies. Not one against the Central-leading Brewers. Not one against the perennial power Dodgers.

This 2-month stretch was never going to guarantee the Marlins a spot in the playoffs, but it was reasonable to assume that failing to take advantage of this remarkably fortuitous stretch of schedule could doom their season.

So far, they’ve largely taken care of business, going 19-12 with 19 games left.

The Marlins were 16-16 and 6 games back in the NL East when this stretch began. They head into the weekend and an upcoming 9-game trip 35-28 and 3 1/2 games behind the front-running Braves.

As for this trip: they have 3 against the 8-under White Sox, 3 against the surprisingly under-achieving 30-31 Mariners and 3 against the last-place 25-36 Nationals.

They still have about 3 weeks to pile up wins during what Dick Vitale would call this “cupcake city” portion of the schedule.

Don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing wrong with beating bad teams. You have to if you’re going to be a playoff team. How often in recent years did we see the Marlins play down to the level of poor competition?

But before getting too carried away, let’s see what happens when they get back to playing some higher-level competition.

Only one ML club, the Rangers, has played fewer games against clubs that are above-.500 this season than the Marlins, who have played 25. By comparison, the Blue Jays have played a major league-high 43 games against teams with winning marks. Miami is 13-12 against teams that are above .500 and 22-16 against sub-.500 clubs, having climbed 6 over with 6 straight wins against the A’s and Royals, who are a combined 62 games under .500 with still about 100 games to play.