The powers that be are a bit concerned about the team's hitting slump.
Owner Jeffrey Loria, team President David Samson, President of Baseball Operations Larry Beinfest and General Manager Michael Hill all holed up in manager Fredi Gonzalez's office after the game. Initially, the media was told Gonzalez would not be available. Almost half an hour after game's end the aforementioned quartet emerged.
"Nothing, nothing," Gonzalez said. "We were just kicking stuff around."
I doubt if the meeting of the minds will yield any positive results.
The guys can hit, but for some reason they aren't. It's not that they don't want to or don't care, it just not happening.
"You can only give credit to the pitcher so much," first baseman Mike Jacobs said. "We just haven't been doing it with the bats. It's definitely frustrating when you can't find that big hit we need."
Scott Olsen has a theory about the abrupt power outage.
"Everything goes in streaks," Olsen said. "Right now, we're not on a good streak. We have to keep pushing it."
It is true that things in life tend to follow cycles. But "keep pushing" may not be the best answer. There is such a thing as trying too hard.
There is no way that everyone forgot how to hit all at once. They will hit again. The problem is: when?
The Marlins have been fortunate that while they have been wasting good outings by the starters they haven't lost much, if any ground. But they can't hope to do this for very long. Nothing that Loria, Samson, Beinfest, Hill or Fredi can come up with to jump start the offense will work. It is just a matter of players returning to form and only they can do that. Now that said, anything anyone can think of that will allow them to relax and get out of their heads could help them in returning to form.
The longer this goes on the tougher it will be to come out of. Example: Mike Lowell in 2005, had a dismal season at the plate and it just went on and on. Lowell knew how to hit but he started thinking about the failures too much. Thus causing more failures.
Pressing the guys won't help, getting them to relax and have fun, might.
The Marlins and the playoffs, by all accounts, weren't supposed to be used in the same sentence at anytime this season. In other words, we are not suppose to be here. So if the Fish will just realize that no matter what happens from here on out, they have had a successful season and then, they may end up shocking the baseball world.