What went wrong?

Lets face it, at 45-54 any playoff hopes that the Marlins thought they had heading into their Muhammad Ali glistened opening night at Marlins Park have been thrown out the window. The front office has made this pretty loud and clear, even though there not admitting it, as they've traded Omar Infante, Anibal Sanchez, and Hanley Ramirez over the past week. It's a damn shame, for the first time in franchise history Marlins fans felt they had a team they could not just win the Wild Card, but WIN THE DIVISION. In a season that presented so much promise, more has gone wrong than right.

1. Lack of Runs.
At the time of writing the Marlins are 29th in all of baseball in runs scored with just 261. (The Cardinals lead the majors with 373) A team isn't going to score many runs if their batters don't get on base, the Marlins are 24th in on base percentage; With speedsters such as Reyes and Bonifacio, you'd expect that to be a lot higher. Of course this article just wouldn't be complete without mentioning the lack of success when the team has runners in scoring position. The Fish are hitting .232 with RISP (25th) and are 26th in RBI's with RISP

2. Injuries
Two words : Gincarlo Stanton.

3. Blown Saves
Oh Heath Bell, at least your good at adding some good drama on (what was) a nightly basis, you sure do keep those "The Franchise" episodes fresh.

4. Wrong moves in off season? What if Loria bumped up the money a little and threw in some self portraits for Pujols and/or C.J. Wilson? Buehrle has been somewhat inconsistent, and Reyes has been mediocre. you honestly have to wonder...

5. Inconsistency
Basically the whole 25 man roster (and Hanley)

is it 2013 yet?

Is tonight the night?

Hopefully, tonight around midnight a king will be crowned, questions will be awnsered, and monkeys will be shred off backs. Thunder @ Heat, game 5, 9 p.m on ABC. Need I say more?

Marlins-Red Sox Game 2 Preview

     The Marlins are set to take on the Red Sox in game 2 of the series later tonight. Mark Buerhle (5-6, 3.49 ERA) is on the mound for the Fish, while Clay Bucholz (6-2, 5.77 ERA) takes the ball for Boston. Buerhle looks to turn things around tonight, as he has dropped his last two starts. Buerhle is 6-6 in his career against boston with a 4.49 ERA in 17 starts. You can view the lineups here. The Marlins had a great win last night, beating Boston 4-1. Josh Johnson picked up his 4th win of the season, and threw the ball the best he has all year. The velocity on his fastball touched 95-96 mph, and the slider looked flat out nasty. The Fish will be looking for the same result tonight at 7:10. Though I'm sure by 9 most of us will be watching a certain Heat game (Heat-Thunder; NBA Finals game 1, 9 p.m ABC)

2 big questions for the Heat heading into The Finals

     With a 101-88 win over the Celtics Saturday night the Heat will face their biggest challenge yet in the NBA Finals against Oklahoma City Thunder. This will mark the second straight finals appearance for Miami (we all know what happened last year). Coming in, there are two big questions facing the Heat. The first is not how they will match up against the likes of Kevin Durant or Russel Westbrook, but Serge Ibaka. at 6' 10", and with tremendous shot blocking ability, Ibaka creates a major match up problem for Miami. The logical choice would be to put Chris Bosh on Ibaka, but Bosh lacks some of the muscle and strength needed to guard him. The match up should be fun to watch come Tuesday night. The second question is, how will Lebron play? Without question Lebron is the best player in the game and in these playoffs so far, but if the man has any hopes of winning his first championship against this lethal Thunder team, he will need to play with the intensity he showed in games 5 and 6 against Boston. I expect him to.

The end of an era.

   Starting tomorrow, November 11th, 2011, South Florida, will have a new baseball team. Sort of. The Florida Marlins will be renamed the Miami Marlins, to go in conjunction with their new ballpark. The team will also unveil new colors, logos, and uniforms, the picture posted in the link is what is rumored to be unveiled tomorrow night at 9 p.m, but just like Jose Reyes being our starting shortstop next year, nothing is certain. Many fans (including me) cannot stand the leaked logo, so if in fact that image is legit, is should be interesting to see how fans react. Being one of the few die hard fish fans out there, it will be weird not proudly saying the FLORIDA Marlins when people ask me who my favorite baseball team is, but as they say, change is good! Let us not forget though the countless memories (good and bad) in the Florida Marlins era, including two world series titles.

P.S: Ill blog about the sexy new uniforms tomorrow night ;)

Patriots snag Haynesworth, Ochocinco

 Once again, Bill Belicheck looks like a freakin' genius! In an unexpected series of events today, The New England Patriots trade for two superstars, former Redskins defensive lineman Albert Haynesworth, and former Bengals wide receiver Chad Ochocinco. Oh yeah, and just one little detail i forgot to mention in the middle of all this, THE. LOCKOUT. IS. OVER. Yep, finito. So what does this mean for the Pats? Well it definetley fills up some big holes on both the offensive and defensive side of the football. The Pats have been without a major defensive end since they traded away Richard Seymour to Oakland back in 2009, Haynseworth could defenitley be the guy to fill that whole. there are some questions as to whether or not he can fit in with the Patriots system, he flourished playing in a 4-3 defense with the Titans but with the Redskins the past few years he's been playing in a 3-4 defensive set and has voiced his displeasure. I don't see too much of a concern though, as the pats like to use multiple defensive fronts, and knowing Bellicheck, he likes to bring out the best in his players and im sure he wont have a problem doing that with Haynesworth. Now on to Ochocinco. The Patriots got both of these guys for late round draft picks over the next two years by the way (classic Bellicheck, low risk, high reward). The other big move of the day was acquiring wide receiver Chad Ochocinco. Ochocinco isn't just another weapon for Tom Brady, he can be used, along with Deion Branch, as a deep threat and someone who can stretch the field. They've needed a legitimate deep threat ever since the Randy Moss fallout last season. This was most exposed in that AFC division game in the playoffs against the Jets last year. If you've been following these two players over the years then you know that they have some character issues which makes this trade questionable to some people. Honestly though I just think of this as another Bill Bellicheck renovation project. Look what what he did with Corey Dillion and Moss, he took from scrub nobodies to superstars who helped lead the Patriots to multiple Super bowls, winning two of them. a lot of people (including me) are making them the favorites to win it all now after these deals, and why not? One thing is for sure though I can't wait for even the preseason to get started, because this is going to be one of the best football seasons league wide we've seen in a long time!

the Marlins sweep Nationals, now just two games under .500

The fish have swept the Nationals in a 3 game series in D.C. Mike Stanton hit a huge homerun and Emilio Bonifacio extended his hitting streak to 25 games. The fish are now just two games under .500