Fish Cap: Miami Marlins 0, San Diego Padres 1

Source: FanGraphs

The Marlins came into their series with the Padres confident in their bats after a strong showing in Philadelphia. They proceeded to score a grand total of one run in the series, losing this, the finale, by a score of 1-0.

Ricky Nolasco is Felix Hernandez

I distinctly remember watching a Mariners game from several years ago with a good friend in which the M's faced the Toronto Blue Jays. In that game, Felix Hernandez pitched and during said game, Jose Bautista hit a solo homer off the King to give the Jays a 1-0 lead. After the home run, I turned to my friend and said "Felix is going to lose this game 1-0 because of course, it's the Mariners." The Mariners did indeed go on to lose the game 1-0 and I decided to drop everything to become a psychic who makes predictions about meaningless baseball games. But that's a story for another time.

What I'm trying to say is that Ricky Nolasco is going to be feeling a lot like Felix Hernandez of recent years, even when he has tremendous outings like he did today. Nolasco threw eight fantastic innings, allowing just four hits and striking out nine. He even helped usher and elderly woman to her seat in the fourth inning, though unfortunately that won't show up in the box score. GET ON IT, SABERMETRICS PEOPLE.

Dietrich's Debut

Prospect Derek Dietrich, our 11th-best Marlins farmhand entering this season made his major league debut at second base, and went 1-for-3 with a single. Dietrich becomes the second Marlins rookie in the last two weeks to single in his first major league game, joining Marcell Ozuna. It's only a matter of time and a few hits before we see Dietrich hitting third in the order. Literally. I'm serious, that's a distinct possibility. Stop laughing.

Anyways, let's just hope that he won't fall victim to the injury bug that continues to decimate this roster.

Looking Ahead

The Marlins are 10-25 and by the looks of it, things are going to get worse before they get better. They'll get the Dodgers to finish up the road trip this weekend before heading home to face the Reds, D-backs, and Phillies. All of those are series that you could realistically expect this team to lose. I imagine that their plan at the beginning of the season was not to have Dietrich and Ozuna both in the starting lineup of the major league club or Adeiny Hechavarria hitting SECOND in the order by mid-May, but that is unfortunately the reality. Obviously, few expected the Fish to have success this season but I'm not sure any expected the situation to be this dire. In the coming months, the focus will have to be on the development of the young players on this roster and getting and keeping guys healthy. It's going to get very ugly in the loss column from here on out, but I think that if guys like Ozuna, Dietrich, and Jose Fernandez are able to progress and make the most out of their big league experience this season, it could go a long way in shaping the club's long-term future. Who knows, maybe 2013 could be looked back on as a valuable year for the organization when all is said and done.