Miami Marlins Beat Braves, Break A Decade Long Streak
No matter how the rest of the season plays out, the Miami Marlins just did something they haven’t done in a decade.
It’s no secret that it’s been awhile since the Miami Marlins last stepped foot on the MLB postseason stage.
However, even if Miami ends up missing out on the playoffs, there are still plenty of major milestones within reach for the beleaguered franchise. Just one more victory would bring to an end a slump even more ignominious than that postseason drought- a stretch of ten straight losing seasons. That alone- considering how the 2020 campaign started for the Miami Marlins- should be good enough to earn Don Mattingly manager of the year honors.
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That said, there has been a lesser known streak going on that has played a massive role in Miami’s decade of misfortune in the win-loss column. A streak that has now come to an end thanks to Miami’s 4-2 victory over the Atlanta Braves Thursday night.
For the first time since 2010, the Miami Marlins can claim a winning record against the NL East.
That’s quite the slide, and also quite a remarkable showing from a team picked to to finish at the bottom of what was widely regarded as MLB’s toughest division coming into the season. Had things gone to script, it would have been the third straight fifth place finish for Miami. Instead, they have a shot to finish in second place for the first time since 2017.
That 2017 team, of course, was full of established MLB stars. Just as the 2016 and 2015 squads were. As was the perhaps equally scrappy and surprising 2014 team. And the crushingly disappointing 2012 team. Not to mention the seemingly cursed 2011 club.
Plenty of reasons can be provided for why the Miami Marlins have failed to have a winning record in ten years, or haven’t made the playoffs in nearly twenty. A penurious former owner. Terrible draft luck. A penurious former owner. Bad luck with injuries. A penurious former owner. The Jose Fernandez tragedy. Incredibly shortsighted trades. A penurious current owner.
However, even with all of those hurdles, the staggering inability to play winning ball against the East needs to be cited as perhaps the biggest factor that at least one of those seasons isn’t remembered much more fondly by the Miami Marlins faithful. Fernandez’s last season in 2016 looms particularly large, where the Marlins went 16-21 combined against a rebuilding Atlanta and Philadelphia, and 32-43 against the division overall.
Understandably, there is still a lot of baseball to be played. Without question, the 2020 season will become another failed effort in the eyes of Miami Marlins fans if at least one of those other droughts doesn’t end this weekend.
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But for a young Miami Marlins club in the third year of its rebuild? There’s no path to better days ahead that doesn’t involve faring far better in the NL East than the organization has over the past decade. So let’s hope this a sign of things to come.