Marlins have earned their place
Season’s franchise record-tying poor start has been a team effort.
LOS ANGELES — There’s a reason the Marlins are off to their most pitiful start in franchise history.
Actually, there’s more than one. A lot more.
Outside of losing, they haven’t been good at anything.
Hitting, pitching, fielding. Pick whatever category you want and the awful numbers stack up to a 5-17 record that matches the worst start by a Marlins team.
As their cross-country road journey brought them to the West Coast to face the Dodgers, there are few signs to make anyone think their fortunes will improve anytime soon.
The numbers aren’t there to support optimism. This is not at all like last season, when the Marlins ranked fifth in runs and led the majors in fielding percentage, when it was easy to figure out that pitching — and pitching alone — was their downfall.
There is no single culprit now. It’s everything.
It’s why manager Don Mat- tingly said Monday these Marlins have to celebrate the small things and not the immediate big picture. He mentioned the occasional “bright spots,” such as Caleb Smith’s start Sunday in Milwaukee, Jarlin Garcia’s starts, Lewis Brinson’s power breakout there, and glimpses of promise from Trevor Richards and Dillon Peters.
“We just haven’t been consistent with it,” he said. “We’re going to celebrate when guys are getting better. We have to be willing to say, ‘This is progress, when we’re running the bases properly or doing the small things.’ We have to celebrate that within our club.”
Reinforcements: Dan Straily was set to make what will likely be his final rehab start Tuesday for Double-A Jacksonville and could join the Marlins’ rotation during the upcoming homestand.
Third baseman Martin Prado could also be back in a Marlins uniform in the coming week. Shortstop JT Riddle and right-hander Elieser Hernandez began their minor league rehab assignments Tuesday for Single-A Jupiter.
Wei-Yin Chen pitched in another rehab outing Sunday. According to a Marlins spokesman, Chen will make his next start over the coming weekend, the “level to be determined.”
Turning the corner? Smith threw six innings, struck out a career-high 10 Sunday and issued no walks in his best start yet since joining the Marlins.
“Tempo is everything for me,” Smith said. “Once I got into a rhythm. That’s what gets me going. I didn’t walk anybody. That was the thing I was really working towards today. The results showed. If you don’t walk anybody, your success is much better. It felt really good. That’s the way I pitched in the past, try to eliminate walks. I felt like myself out there today. The previous four starts, I didn’t really feel like myself out there.”
Smith has been tracked as having one of the best spinrates in baseball on his four-seam fastball, which makes that pitch more likely to prompt swings and misses from hitters. Smith’s aver- age of 2,408.94 revolutions per minute per Statcast is above the league average of 2,261. Smith got 12 swings and misses in Sunday’s start with seven on the 25 sliders he threw and five on fastballs.