Series Preview: Marlins at Pirates

The Marlins are back in the doldrums of the NL East, sitting in fourth place. They have some pretty good hitters, actually. Edinson Volquez pitches for the Marlins, something your uncle learned when he no-hit the Diamondbacks last Saturday, giving him some good cherry-picked Pirates should of kept ammunition. They currently have Jeff Locke and Vance Worley in their rotation, too. Miami dropped two of three at the Cubs this week, avoiding a sweep with a 6-5 win Wednesday night.

The Pirates (26-33) lost a pair of games in Baltimore in similar, excruciating fashion, with Tony Watson blowing leads in both.

Season Series: 2-1 Pirates

April 28: Pirates 12, Marlins 2

April 29: Pirates 4, Marlins 0

April 30: Marlins 10, Pirates 3

Schedule

Thursday, 7:05 p.m. - Edinson Volquez (2-7, 3.79 ERA) vs. Gerrit Cole (3-5, 4.27), TV: Root

Friday, 7:05 p.m. - Vance Worley (0-2, 6.59) vs. Tyler Glasnow (2-5, 6.97), TV: Root

Saturday, 4:05 p.m - Dan Straily (4-4, 3.59) vs. Trevor Willliams (3-3, 4.57), TV: Root

Sunday, 1:35 p.m. - Jeff Locke (0-1, 3.48) vs. Ivan Nova (5-4, 3.04), TV: Root

Marlins

25-33 (26-32 Pythag, 4.43 RS/G, 4.88 RA/G)

Offense

The Fish can swing the bats. Their position players as a unit rank 10th in Major League Baseball in fWAR (8.3), though the team is 19th in the majors in runs scored (257). The Marlins suffered a blow with an ankle injury to Justin Bour, which will keep the team’s home-run leader (16) and second-best position player (1.5 fWAR) out of the lineup for a little while. Adeiny Hechavarria, Martin Prado and Miguel Rojas are also out with injuries. Marcell Ozuna, Giancarlo Stanton, J.T. Realmuto and Christian Yelich give Miami a pretty nice core of hitters, though. Ozuna, at age 26, is having a career year at the plate (.323/.387/.570, 15 HR) and has shined defensively with a move to left field.

Pitching

Folks, would you look at this? Jim Benedict’s Marlins have collected a few notable Pirates castoffs. Jeff Locke and Vance Worley have only recently joined the rotation due to injuries (Wei-Yin Chen, Tom Koehler and Justin Nicolino are on the shelf). Edinson Volquez, despite his no-hit exploits, is still walking guys. Dan Straily, the Marlins’ other starter this series, remains solid and is the staff’s top pitcher by fWAR (1.1). David Phelps has settled in nicely as a full-time reliever. At the back end A.J. Ramos and Kyle Barraclough have fanned plenty, but been done in by the free pass.

Outlook

A weekend schedule including games *against* Vance Worley and Jeff Locke looks nice, which is exactly why I’m concerned. I feel like at least one of those guys is going to shove it, just because. On paper, though, the Orioles are good, the Marlins are bad; playing on the road is hard, playing at home is easier. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯