The Marlins surprising 5-1 start had us feeling positively optimistic. Maybe this season wouldn't be a slow, painful march to MLB irrelevance. Maybe, just maybe, this would be the first season the team actually lost a playoff series!
Sadly, reality has set back in. The team is in the midst of an eight-game losing streak and has dropped from near the top of the standings back down to the bottom rungs where they're so comfortable.
See also: Wait a Second, Are the Marlins Actually Good This Year?
In fact, the team is just three losses away from matching the franchise record for longest losing streak at 11 games. That happened once in 1998 and again in 2011. They're just one loss away form matching last year's longest losing streak of nine games in a row. Which is depressing considering it's only the start of week three.
For what its worth, it's also by the longest losing streak in the MLB so far this season.
"The only way we can get out of this thing is somebody needs to step up and go out there and say it's over, I'm done with it," manager Mike Redmond told the Herald. "We either need a big pitching performance or a big hit or a big play to spark us and get us going."
The streak includes four losses to the Nationals, three to the Phillies and one to the Padres. The team will finish out their home series agains the Nationals this week before hosting the Mariners.
To make matters worse, the team's sole star Giancarlo Stanton has actually been on fire so far this season. He's having his hottest start to a season ever with an appropriately Miami batting average of .305 and four home runs. He also leads the team in RBIs and overall hits. Shortstop Adeiny Hechavarria has been the only standout so far this season with a batting average of .327.
Official attendance meanwhile is a hair better than last year's with an average of 22,315 fans this season, but that's nothing to crow about. It's still the 26th worst in the league.
Things probably won't get better as local attention will be dominated by the Heat as they began their playoff run on Friday.
Speaking of postseasons, while we all secretly wish it was, as The Onion once put it, "Apparently That Year Marlins Win World Series Again," it would be nice to have a baseball team whose practical shot at the postseason hadn't been effectively nuked before the end of the NBA Finals.
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