Mark Hendrickson couldn't find the feel for any of his pitches last night, but he proved to have a sense of humor along the way .

Hendrickson said it was a strange pitching night for him.

"I've never really had another one like this," he said. "Nothing was working."

He said Treanor came out to talk to him at one point when he was struggling, and suggested they go with Hendrickson's best pitch.

"I told him, 'Do I have a fifth pitch? Because the four I'm using aren't working.' "

By Marlins early season standards for starters, he wasn't that horrible giving up only one run and walking two in the 4.1 innings he pitched.  Naturally, we anticipate a little better outing for Hendrickson. but if that is an off-night, it can be lived with.

The Fish have an excellent bullpen and they can take the game home from there, as long as they don't have to do it every night.  Fortunately the pen was well rested thanks mostly to Ollie and the Hopper chipped in to the cause.

Hendrickson even unnecessarily accepted the blame for the length of the game .

"I just apologized to everybody for the pace of the game," Hendrickson said about the 3 hour, 19 minute affair. "That was a long game. Too long."

No apologies necessary.  The Brewers pitching staff probably had more to do with the length of the game than anyone.  And anyway, if a win for the Marlins takes all night long that is something we can live with.

Also, if any Marlins player happens to make the starting roster for the NL in the All Star game, they only have last night's game to thank, since it gave us ample time to vote our butts off.

Boy, you write something in a Chum Bucket post and the next thing you know a professional sports writer covers the same topic.  Now I'm not dumb enough to believe that one as anything to do with the other, but it is a nice coincidence .

Before sitting out Sunday afternoon's win against San Diego -- he hasn't started a day game this season -- Rabelo had served as Florida's starting backstop in 15 of 21 games since coming off the disabled list. Naturally, this has some believing Rabelo has displaced Matt Treanor as the team's everyday catcher, despite their near-identical numbers.

''[It] kind of seems like he is the everyday guy now, if you ask me,'' starting pitcher Mark Hendrickson said.

``I mean, just because of the amount of time he's playing.''

Manager Fredi Gonzalez won't declare it, though. Rabelo won't even admit to aiming for that No. 1 spot.

Follow up questions to yesterday: I agree that Rabelo seeing most of the time behind the plate is trade justification, but exactly who is the front office justifying it to?  It can't be the fans, while I don't think they are totally oblivious to what the fans think, they don't seem to concern themselves very much with the opinions of the loyal Fish followers.  And it surely isn't the local press, they seem to be on the same roller coaster as the fans trying to figure out what the heck is going on much of the time.  Their peers in baseball? Doubtful.  Then who?

I'm not saying Treanor should catch everyday or even get most of the starts, but I'm just saying that I don't see why he sits on the bench and Rabelo plays when I can't see a definitive reason for the decision.

Your thoughts on this are more than welcomed.  Oh, and please come up with something other than Treanor is a backup catcher since that is all Rabelo has been before now.

I'm just curious.  And I promise the rest of the week won't contain quizzes. 

It appears that Mike Rabelo is going to be the starting catcher with Matt Treanor as the backup .

Matt Treanor was on the lineup card Sunday -- no surprise, since that's where backup catchers typically wind up for a day game following a night game. What is a bit of a surprise is that Treanor has been reduced to backup status behind Mike Rabelo after the word all spring was that the two would split the duties.

Rabelo has started 11 of the Marlins' 17 games since he emerged from the disabled list on April 11. Manager Fredi Gonzalez was coy in his explanation to reporters for the reason behind his decision.

''When your name's in the lineup, you play,'' Gonzalez said. ``Seriously, whoever is playing well, plays. It's not that big of a deal.''

Gonzalez mentioned that Rabelo (.273) is hitting. But it's not like Treanor wasn't contributing with his bat before Rabelo joined the roster. Treanor was 7 for 26 at the time Rabelo started cutting into his playing time, but has gone 2 for 16 since.

Since Rabelo's return from the DL, he has caught every game with the exception of Nolasco's starts and Sunday's games.

The .273 BA argument is pretty lame considering that on April 24th, Rabelo was hitting .216 and was still getting most of the time behind the plate.

Here is what I know or at least as it appears to me:  Rabelo isn't, at this point, a better defensive catcher than Treanor.  He is also a very slow and crappy runner of the bases.  Not to mention in almost in the same number of games, Treanor has thrown out 7 runners and Rabelo only two.

I'm not really trying to beat up on Rabelo, it is possible he will get better defensively and will learn the reason that there are base coaches on the field, though I doubt he will get any faster.  It is just that, don't use a .57 point jump in batting average in the last two days as a reason to justify one catcher over the other.  I find it insulting.  At least come up with something better than that.