The Miami Marlins offense has been miserable in 2019, but their power outage in May is beyond belief.
Over the past few years, home runs have increased throughout major league baseball. Whether it is a byproduct of the launch angle revolution, or juiced baseballs, players are hitting homers at a higher rate than ever. At least, players that are not a part of the Miami Marlins are hitting an impressive amount of homers.
The Marlins, meanwhile, have had quite the impressive power outage. Thus far in May, Miami has hit all of one home run. One.
The Marlins have hit one (1) home run in May.
— Mike Axisa (@mikeaxisa) May 16, 2019
That one home run has come courtesy of Jon Berti, whose home run on May 6th was the first, and thus far only, homer of his major league career. The 29 year old has not exactly been a power threat as a professional, having hit a total of 33 homers in his nine year minor league career.
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Given the Marlins anemic offense, that lack of power may not be a surprise. They have averaged just 2.56 runs per game, a truly pathetic number in an era of improved offensive production. Yet, that season average is far better than the 1.92 runs that the Marlins have averaged this month. There is no question why Miami is 10-31 heading into Friday.
It is not as though the Marlins offense has been completely devoid of power this year. They hit 23 homers prior to May, a total that was at least respectable. Jorge Alfaro leads the team with five homers, while several other players have hit at least three home runs on the year.
However, Neil Walker is the only player to have even one plate appearance who has an OPS+ of at least 100. The Marlins rank last in virtually every major offensive category, excluding steals (12th), strikeouts (8th), and walks and batting average (14th in both). The Marlins problems go beyond this astonishing power outage.
The Miami Marlins have just one home run thus far in May. At least Jon Berti was able to run into one.