Yesterday, we pointed out one reason for the hot month of May from the Miami Marlins, and that was Jose Reyes and his patience. The Fish have obviously gotten a mammoth May performance from Giancarlo Stanton (and we will have more on that when the month ends) which has propelled the offense this month. But another reason why the Marlins have a shot at 20 wins this month is because of Hanley Ramirez's strong performance in the month.

Clearly, Ramirez has been hot in the month of May, but much of that has been a simple rise in his BABIP; Ramirez has hit .321 on balls in play in May after hitting just .228 in April. So what story is there to tell about him right now?

His power is back.

This sign is highly encouraging, because Ramirez's power had been slipping over the last two seasons, and the reasons seemed pretty clear at the time. Yet, even as we look now, we see that while Ramirez's power is up again to career levels, he has not completely gotten rid of the old habit that bit into his power the last few years.

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Source: FanGraphs

Attendance: 24,009

Hero of the Game (Largest WPA): Greg Dobbs (.046 WPA+)

Goat of the Game (Lowest WPA): Anibal Sanchez (-.301 WPA+)

Play of the Game: Angel Pagan doubled off Anibal Sanchez in the top of the sixth, scoring two Giants. (+.215 WPA)

The Marlins pitching staff couldn't control the Giants hitters on Thursday night. Even though Giancarlo Stanton and Greg Dobbs both had impressive offensive performances, the Miami pitchers never kept the game close. A wacky sixth inning broke open a low-scoring game in Miami.

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The Miami Marlins have optioned left-handed pitcher Mike Dunn to AAA New Orleans, according to Joe Frisaro of MLB.com:

#Marlins option Mike Dunn to Triple-A. no corresponding move yet

— Joe Frisaro (@JoeFrisaro) May 25, 2012

Dunn, a 27 year-old with four years pro experience, completed little more than nine innings of work over eleven games this season with the Marlins, giving up thirteen hits, eight walks, and seven earned runs while striking out fourteen. And that was before tonight's outing, where he gave up another four runs.

While he has been the secondary Lefty One Out GuY behind Randy Choate most of the season, he's been able to strike out thirteen-and-a-half every nine innings -- but at the cost of almost eight batters over the same frame.

What happened? Michael Jong says it's been a combination of an odd skill set going bad at the worst times:

Mike Dunn has basically looked like he did most of last season. He has more walks, but he also has struck out more hitters. It just happens to be that the walks have come at inopportune times (his part in the four-reliever, four-walk fiasco comes to mind) and that he has allowed 16 hits in just over 10 innings.

Some of that is bad placement, some of that is bad luck, and all of it is enough to send him back to Triple-A while the Marlins find a competent final bullpen arm.

No corresponding move has been announced.

The Miami Marlins are coming off a good series versus the Colorado Rockies that unfortunately was not any better than that, mostly because of the mid-game struggles of Carlos Zambrano in last night's 8-4 loss to the Rockies. Nevertheless, the Fish won yet another series and have yet to lose a set since they for a nine-game road trip to start the month of May. The team they faced to open up their hot month? Why, it was none other than the San Francisco Giants, whom the Marlins swept in AT&T Park at the start of the month. Tonight, the Giants and Marlins begin a four-game series at Marlins Park, with the Fish looking to repeat their winning ways while the Giants look to exact revenge.

Tale of the Tape

If I had to make a summary statement from these four numbers, I would declare emphatically that the Marlins and Giants were the same team. Those numbers are so identical in magnitude and placement that it is almost no coincidence. However, the Marlins have the upside of a number of good offensive players who are currently struggling and underperforming projections, whereas everyone on the Giants who is expected to hit is doing so and then some. In fact, it is confusing to see the Giants hitting a .303 wOBA as a team when they have players like Pablo Sandoval (.392 wOBA) and Buster Posey (.372) hitting so well and overachievers like Melky Cabrera (.392) hitting like gangbusters right now.

Stadium: Marlins Park

The Rockies series added three more games to the tally of early performance in the new Marlins Park, and Jeff Sullivan of Baseball Nation showed here how its early reputation has not matched the results.

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According to Joe Frisaro of MLB.com, Emilio Bonifacio appears to be out another four to six weeks with his thumb injury. Apparently, he will be going under the knife on Friday. If you will recall, Bonifacio hurt the thumb on a slide during a basestealing attempt against the Cleveland Indians in the first game of their weekend series last week.

The Marlins have been running with Bryan Petersen in center field, but recently the team had to promote Chris Coghlan to add outfield depth, and now the club will be without contributor Austin Kearns as he is now on the disabled list with his hamstring problems. With the series of outfielder injuries in quick succession, the Marlins are suddenly running thin on outfield options.

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The Miami Marlins have placed Austin Kearns on the disabled list with a tight right hamstring and have recalled center fielder Kevin Mattison according to Clark Spencer of the Miami Herald:

#marlins expected to place of austin kearns on DL, recall of kevin mattison

— clarkspencer (@clarkspencer) May 24, 2012

Kearns, 32, is in his twelfth season as a pro, his first with Miami. He was off to a hot start this season, going .375/.444/.646 through fifty-eight plate appearances. Kearns' early success was especially surprising compared to his career line of .256/.352/.420 and this season looks even better compared to his terrible 2011, when he went just .200/.302/.287 in fifty-seven games for the Cleveland Indians.

Mattison, 26, joins the club from AAA New Orleans, where he's hit .252/.320/.424, with thirty-eight hits, nine doubles, five home runs, and fifteen walks through 170 plate appearances. He's stolen six, but been caught six times.

Mattison was drafted by the Marlins in the 28th round of the 2008 MLB Amateur Draft.

Amid the excitement about a hot month for the Marlins (16-6 record in the month of May) and the hot streak of Giancarlo Stanton (.298/.385/.655, .438 wOBA in May) lies some other strong performances from bounceback candidates in May. One of those candidates is Jose Reyes, who struggled mightily in the month of April, batting just .220/.293/.341 that month. The key, however, was that many of his peripherals, particularly his strikeout and walk rates, were decently in line with expectations. Reyes struck out and walked at about a 10 percent clip that month, and that seemed reasonable given his general ability to avoid strikeouts and his decent plate approach.

In May, Reyes has been much better, hitting .292/.385/.337, good for a .339 wOBA. While some of those numbers remain off in that batting line, in particular his power, his OBP stands out in how high it is for a player who was once known for being more of a traditional leadoff man rather than the OBP-dependent leadoff man of today. Reyes racked up a .385 OBP on the back of one of the oddest months of plate discipline we have seen from him.

In May, Reyes has drawn 14 walks while only striking out five times. This is an amazing feat for a player who previously was known as a free swinger, whether he was or was not. Prior to last season's career year, Reyes's career high in OBP was .358 in 2008. His previous career high in walks was 77 in 2007, and while he might not match that mark this year, he could end up with his second or third highest walk total of his career by season's end; ZiPS projects Reyes will finish the season with 58 walks (based on an 8.4 percent walk rate the rest of the way). Meanwhile, while he is not likely to beat last year's strikeout low in 43, ZiPS projects him to finish with 51 punch-outs, the second lowest total of his career and the second time he would have finished with more walks than strikeouts.

How is Reyes doing all of this? Apparently, he is attempting to employ a formula previously used by one of the finest Marlins of team history, Luis Castillo.

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The Marlins currently have an outfielder on their Class A team that deserves much more attention than he’s received. That player, outfielder Brent Keys, has put up unbelievable numbers this year, and finally, his tools have translated into results. He’s almost hitting .400, and he has played outstanding defense in 2012. Keys was never considered a prospect before this season, but talent evaluators have quickly changed their mind when it comes to this athletic twenty-one year old. Hopefully, Keys can continue to be successful for another couple of weeks in Greensboro, then get a promotion to High-A.

Brent Keys was born in July of 1990 in Simi Valley, California, which is in the San Fernando Valley right outside of Los Angeles. At Simi Valley High School, Keys never stood out as a dominating hitter. In 2008, as a Junior, Keys hit .377 with two homers in thirty-three games. While those might seem like impressive numbers for some people, the average batting average for a high school position player is usually much higher than one of an MLB position player. Keys wasn’t dominant in high school, but he did turn some heads due to his athleticism. In 2009, Keys was named to the California All-Region 2^nd team and was selected by the Miami Marlins in the seventeenth round.

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