Tonight is the first game in a series bound to shake up the standings in the NL East. The Florida Marlins hold the lead in the division, but only by a half game. After dropping their last 2 to the Mets, Florida comes in looking to rebound and get through a very tough spot of their schedule (a series with the Mets, now us, then Atlanta, then Cincinnati, then us again before an interstate game against the AL best Rays). The Phillies on the other hand are winners of 4 in a row and have been tearing the cover off of the ball lately.
The Phillies boast arguably the best, most productive offense in all of baseball. I went through the team stats late Wednesday night and compiled a list of rankings for the team. I will put that up in a post a little later.
The Marlins are one of the youngest teams in the majors with an average age of about 28 years old, and yes, that does include 40 year-old Luis Gonzalez. Not only are they young, but the entire team payroll for 2008 is less than than what Alex Rodriguez is getting paid this season. They are playing very well right now, but I just don’t see them lasting strong all year. They are good, but with all their young pitching, I see them falling back to just above .500.
Middle infielders Dan Uggla and Hanley Ramirez lead the way offensively for the Marlins. Uggla is hitting .307. He has 16 homeruns and 38 RBIs. With he and Utley combined, there are 2 second basemen in the top three in homeruns in the league. Ramirez has slightly less power but more speed. He is batting .291, and has 9 homeruns, and 13 stolen bases. Both have scored 51 runs on the season. The biggest knock on the two of them is the rate in which they strikeout. Uggla is over a 2/1 K/BB ratio while Ramirez is slightly under that. With averages where they are, they have an OBP of .386, and .384 respectively. Once they get that up, and cut down on errors (the Marlins lead the league in errors) they will start to get more respect.
Brett Myers gets the start tonight at 7:05 in Philly. He is still trying to grasp being a starting pitcher again. He said way back before the season started that he was going to use his closer mentality in a starter’s role. Well that never started working. He has had just 3 quality starts all year.
Toeing the rubber for the Marlins is lefty Mark Hendrickson. Hendrickson is 7-2 on the season with a 4.14 ERA. He doesn’t pitch for strikeouts much, so I’m not too worried about our lefties going against him.
All in all this should be a very good series, and who knows, we might walk away in the lead in the NL East after Sunday. Be ready for a lot of comparisons between Uggla/Ramirez and Utley/Rollins. I’m sure announcers have been waiting for this series to go on and on about them.
