Miami Marlins have a legitimate shot at the playoffs, and the schedule to make it happen

The Miami Marlins are 7-3 in their last ten and while the NL East is well out of reach, a spot in the NL Wild Card game remains a very real possibility.

Giancarlo Stanton, or as he is known for Player’s Weekend, “Crush,” has been on a tear this month, collecting home runs 48 and 49 of the season last night. It’s easy to look at the production that he is providing the Fish and say, well yeah they have a shot at claiming a Wild Card spot.

As we enter play on Saturday, the Miami Marlins are 4.5 games behind the Colorado Rockies for the second Wild Card spot, with the Milwaukee Brewers sitting between them and Colorado at 3.5 back. The Arizona Diamondbacks, at 71-58, hold a 1.5 game lead over the Rockies for the first Wild Card spot and home field advantage for the play-in game.

While the Marlins are just one game over .500, they find themselves within striking distance of claiming one of the two Wild Card spots, and both the Rockies and Diamondbacks have been showing signs of slowing down in recent weeks.

I looked at the Marlins’ splits from the first half compared to August on a number of levels, and what I’m seeing is that the team is getting more production at the plate (95 wRC+ at the break, 103 in August), has received better pitching both from their starters (5.00 ERA pre-break, 4.72 in August) and bullpen (4.10 pre, 4.03 August) and they’re doing it in an odd way.

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On the bump the Marlins have been striking fewer guys out, nearly 1.5 batters per nine fewer, but they have also been walking roughly one less batter per nine innings as well. There are lots of ways to get guys out, so the strikeout rate isn’t terribly alarming, but there is only one way to walk a batter, and a lower walk rate usually means that a pitcher’s control is improving. The one downside here is that their FIP from the first half showed that they were being dinged by some bad luck in the field, while the defense has been picking them up in the second half. While good defense is obviously a plus, you’d also like the pitching to be good enough to not need bailing out.

At the dish Miami has been cranking out homers a little more frequently, hitting a round-tripper every 26.74 plate appearances this month compared to one every 32.12 plate appearances in the first half. Their walk rate as a team has improved from 7.1% to 8.7% and their strikeout rate has gone down slightly from 20.2% to 18.8%.

The one cause for optimism here is that their BABIP has also gone down in this stretch, from .313 to .294, which should mean that their recent play is sustainable. Who’s to say the mighty Stanton shall ever slow down? With the rate he’s crankin’ ’em, I’m not taking that bet.

Finally, and most importantly, there’s their upcoming schedule. This weekend they’ll finish with two more against the San Diego Padres and get an immediate dose of reality when they travel to Washington to play the division-leading Nats. The Nats are banged up all over the diamond and Stanton and the Fish are hot now. This is a series they could legitimately win two of three. After a four-game set in Philadelphia against the worst team in baseball, they get the Nationals three more times at home.

Those two Nats series could lay the groundwork for a potential run towards October, or they could extinguish the embers before there’s a fire.

If the Marlins play the Nats close, they’ll control their own destiny. They’ll have eight against the Braves split between home and road remaining, and another three against the Phillies (who still aren’t terribly good). There is a 12-game stretch that will more than likely be the determining factor of the Fish’s playoff fate, and that starts on September 15 and ends September 27. In that span they’ll have three game series against the Brewers (home), Mets (home), Diamondbacks (away) and Rockies (away). The three teams ahead of them will be there to pick off one by one.

Next: Cleveland has been a thorn in Sale's side

In their previous series, Miami is 3-1 against Arizona, 3-0 against Colorado, 1-2 against Milwaukee and 9-7 against the Mets. They have played the Nationals hard, going 6-7 so far this season in 13 games, but oddly enough it’s the Braves that have given them some trouble this year. Atlanta is 7-4 against Miami, and that includes a 2-1 record since the break.

The Marlins have the schedule and the talent to make a run towards a playoff spot, which would mean that they would obviously win the World Series because that’s what they do every time they make it to October baseball. And the Dodgers were having such a nice season, too…