The Marlins are 16 and 19 right now, placed 4th in the NL East. This season they have scored 111 runs and allowed 110. Let's take a look at the pitchers for this series:
Mark Buerhle: Buerhle is consistently ranked baseball's best defensive pitcher and one of baseball's fastest, both make pitching against never a fun task. He is pitching well this year with an ERA/xFIP of 2.83/3.95 over 41.1 IP. He isn't striking out many however with a k/9 of just 4.79%. He is definitely the pitcher who concerns me the most this weekend.
Ricky Nolasco: The oft underrated Nolasco is also having a good year with an ERA/xFIP of 2.72/3.94 over 39.2 IP. His k/9 currently sits at 4.76. Wow. It's like I just copied the Buehrle section and pasted it here. These guys have eerily similar stats. The big difference is that Nolasco is 4-0 and Buehrle is 2-4, ah the wonderful vagaries of pitcher wins and losses.
Carlos Zambrano: The big Z! Remember last year when he stormed off the field and retired on the spot? That was awesome... Anyway I bet you forgot Big Z was even on the Marlins, well he is and he is pitching pretty darn well with an ERA at a svelte 1.98. He has struck out 32 batters over 41 innings and has been a very useful part of the Marlins rotation. His prolific batting has fallen off however, he has 1 hit for a BA of .83. His lifetime average still sits at a remarkable .238.
The Marlins offense was off to a slow start but is starting to rise to predicted levels. The strongest batsman has been Omar Infante, he of many positions, who is hitting .313/.343/.635. I am pleased as shoo fly pie to report that Jose Reyes is batting a laughable .233 and still has not cracked a positive WAR (he's at -.2).
Finally I got to wondering how this strong Spring start compares to other recent Met Springs so I compiled this table of the Mets standings on May 11 going back 6 years.
Date
|
Wins
|
Losses
|
5/11/2012
|
18
|
13
|
5/11/2011
|
16
|
20
|
5/11/2010
|
18
|
15
|
5/11/2009
|
17
|
14
|
5/11/2008
|
19
|
16
|
5/11/2007
|
22
|
12
|
5/11/2006
|
22
|
12
|
Well it isn't quite as good as those wonderful years of '06 and '07 but it is our best May 11th since 2008 and much better than last year. I think it shows that we still have some work to do and shouldn't get too excited just yet but also shows a marked improvement of this team over some of the recent years.
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