Cardiac Season In The NL East

By MarlinMadness12
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Updated: June 5, 2012

Our Marlins are among the hottest in baseball right now, if not the hottest. We played .750 ball during May to drag us from the cellar after a 9-14 start.

The NL East is severely competitive this season. A simple 3 game slide has the potential to push a first place team to fourth. Surprisingly, Washington has held out first for the bulk of this young season, tied with our Marlins, New York is a half game behind us after Gee’s bad throw last night, Atlanta went on a slide after Jones went down injured, 2 games back, and that leaves injury plagued Philadelphia pulling up the rear in the division, 4 games back currently.

It has been a season of anxiety for Marlin fans. So far this year we have seen politics with Ozzie’s comments, Heath Bell struggling to close out, and what some of us may have thought of as a busted attempt to bring our team back to the Series. We had expected to have easily challenged any of our rivals for first place, but we were slow out of the gate.

But, just as quickly as our hopes were doused, the fire rekindled as May brought us back into relevance in baseball with our 21-8 month. What caused our start to be so feeble? Was it the fact of having several new players on a new look team in a new stadium? Was it the expectations placed on the team to succeed immediately? Was it the Malinsanity media hype? Far be it from anyone to be able to place a finger on what the reasons could have been, but May erased any doubts on our ability to produce. Once our offense heated up, it was near impossible to cool it down.

All the pieces have fallen into place now and Miami is primed to make a run at their first division title. But the way this division is stacked up, this will be a difficult task. Every one of our rivals are playing solid ball. Even ailing Philadelphia has the potential to push themselves to first with the right combination of events.

Our division, and the AL East are the only divisions in baseball where the difference from first to last is less than 5 games. The Phillies trail by 4 in the NL, and Toronto trails Tampa Bay by 3 in the AL East. No other divisions can be shaken up as quickly or as easily. If our caliber of play since May 1st is our new level of consistency, there is no reason why we can not win it. But with our tough intra-division opponents, it will be interesting to say the least. Our Marlins look up to task, and we will back them all the way to the title..GO FISH!!