After three weeks of games against the best teams in the National League, the Pirates are headed to Miami tonight to play the Marlins. The Marlins are, frankly, terrible. They just lost three games in a row to the Phillies and are now tied with the Phils and (statistically) the Rockies for baseball’s worst record. They are managed by a general manager and owned by a demon sent to earth to specifically drain joy from baseball wherever he treads. They have two of the best sources of baseball joy in the world right now (Giancarlo Stanton and Jose Fernandez) and both of them have spent long stretches of this season on the disabled list. Baseball’s most famous fan wears a Marlins jersey and is never, ever seen at a Marlins game. Just typing all this gives me a pang of the existential sadness that used to surround the Pirates at all times.
This series against the Marlins and the upcoming ones against the Rockies and Brewers are very big ones, despite the records of the Pirates’ opponents. The Pirates are healthy and have a full bench for the first time since July, excellent bullpen work and strong starts from JA Happ and Charlie Morton have put worries about rotation depth partially to bed. They are also 3 1/2 games behind the Cardinals, which is about as close as they’ve been since the All-Star break ended and the Cards immediately stretched out the small lead they took into the break. In other words, 13-5 against the NL’s best was phenomenal, but the Pirates can’t let the foot off the pedal.
JA Happ and Tom Koehler at 7:10.
