Big Fat Disappointment

The Miami Marlins kicked off their inaugural season with a flair of pomp, spectacle, and a gaudy home-run sculpture that lights up and spews water after every dinger and team win. They had a brand-new stadium, brand-new uniforms, new faces on the team, a new manager, and their very own nationally televised cable reality show! And then the games had to be played, and things went down the proverbial shitter. The Marlins have been something of a disaster during the first half of this season, shown via their lack of offense, untimely losing streaks, Ozzie Guillen spouting out dumb things about Fidel Castro, and star free agent acquisition Jose Reyes being mostly meh. But mainly the Marlins’ woes can be traced to hefty closer Heath Bell, who was brought in with a big contract to be the guy who was supposed to shut the door on the competition and make us all excited with his patented sprints to the mound from the bullpen. Instead, Bell has been a huge sack of fail. He’s blown six saves, with an ERA to match his belt size (because he’s fat, you see) and has done nothing to justify his big paycheck. Now that the second half of the season is underway, the Fish find themselves nine games out of first place in the NL East and a big mountain to climb to get into playoff contention. Will Heath get his crap together before it’s too late? Yeah, probably not. But here’s to hoping Ozzie says another ridiculous thing to distract us from all the suck.
Mon., July 23, 7:10 p.m., 2012