Marlins luck out once again

So, the Marlins lost today 11-1 to the Phillies and end up losing the series as well. They also gave life to a franchise that had lost 5 straight before they opened this series, and seemed to lose out on what once was a one-sided meeting.

To continue the bad news, the Marlins starters, in all three contests, failed to get past the 4th inning and the bullpen not only got overworked, but overexposed. The Marlins offense looked sluggish, at a noted hitter's park, while displaying some offensive power at RFK against the Nationals, a spacious park, in the series before.

As it stands, the Phillies are now alive and well in the Wild Card hunt and sit at only 1.5 games back behind the leading Astros.

But that is also the good news in this loss for the Marlins.

The Astros lost again today, dropping 2 of 3 to the Brewers. Although the Marlins got buried by the Phillies today, it could have been 50-1 and it wouldn't have mattered. The Marlins still sit at .5 games back, no worse than they were when they opened the series against the Phillies.

Being a fan of baseball requires some perspective. Unlike football, the season is not make-or-break with one game. It takes several games to even begin to see some kind of progress, and even then there is still plenty of time before sounding off any panic alarms.

So the Marlins lost today, so what? They lost the series? No big deal. But this is where it starts to turn - for either the better or the worse. The Marlins have a 4 game series against the Astros. That series was shaping up to be a big one before today, and now it just reached monolithic proportions. The Marlins got lucky, playing their worst baseball at what seemed to be the best time to get away with it. This next series, they may not be so lucky.