Marlins vs. Mets: Game 50 Thread and Icthyomancy

The Fish served up a delicious, glazed donut for Dan Jennings yesterday and will attempt to satiate him again as they try and Escape From New York with a series win. Wins have come few and far between but as losses can (and have) been strung together so too can wins and the Marlins have an opportunity before them to do just that. Attempting to spark a winning streak for Miami will be Tom Koehler, manning the battlements for the Mets will be Jonathon Niese.

Pitching Matchup

Niese has been roughed up his last few outings (to the tune of 24 earned runs in 16 innings pitched). He claims to feel great, so it may be more of a symptom of his average stuff catching up to him.

The Koehl Miner also features an average repertoire but at least he can say that he pitched well in his last turn, a 6 1/3 inning, three hit outing against the Baltimore Orioles last Sunday. The Marlins would be more then happy to get a encore performance today.

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<h3>Today's Lineups</h3>

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<th align="left">MIAMI MARLINS</th>

<th align="left">NEW YORK METS</th>

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<tr><td class="td-last td-name">Dee Gordon - 2B</td><td class="td-first td-name">Curtis Granderson - RF</td></tr><tr><td class="td-last td-name">Martin Prado - 3B</td><td class="td-first td-name">Ruben Tejada - 3B</td></tr><tr><td class="td-last td-name">Giancarlo Stanton - RF</td><td class="td-first td-name">Lucas Duda - 1B</td></tr><tr><td class="td-last td-name">Jeff Baker - 1B</td><td class="td-first td-name">Daniel Murphy - 2B</td></tr><tr><td class="td-last td-name">Marcell Ozuna - CF</td><td class="td-first td-name">Michael Cuddyer - LF</td></tr><tr><td class="td-last td-name">Christian Yelich - LF</td><td class="td-first td-name">Wilmer Flores - SS</td></tr><tr><td class="td-last td-name">J.T. Realmuto - C</td><td class="td-first td-name">Juan Lagares - CF</td></tr><tr><td class="td-last td-name">Donovan Solano - SS</td><td class="td-first td-name">Kevin Plawecki - C</td></tr><tr><td class="td-last td-name">Tom Koehler - RHP</td><td class="td-first td-name">Jon Niese - LHP</td></tr></tbody>

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Donovan Solano will start for Adeiny Hechavarria and bat 8th, while Jeff Baker slots into the four hole for Justin Bour against the lefty Niese. Speaking of Bour, he continues to roll with his new-ish starting 1st base gig, yanking a three run shot in last night's 4-3 win. After last night's game his slash line is a robust .368/.419/.579. Small sample size, and his .409 BABIP suggests that he's been pretty lucky, but uh, who cares. Let's worry about that later and enjoy for the time being!

Notes:

-The Marlins are going for win #4 in the Dan Jennings Era. Since the firing of Mike Redmond, Miami has gone 3-8. Winning today would be their first back-to-back road win since April 22-23 when they beat the Phillies.

-Ichiro enters today with 2,876 hits in his American career. ZiPS projects him to finish the season with 76 hits. If that were the case, he would need 80 hits next season to reach 3,000 hits in Major League Baseball. My question to you, intrepid Fish Stripes reader, is will he get there?

-The Mets are a NL East rival and have been troublesome as of late, but are they "THE" rival in your mind? If not, then who is?

Bold Prediction: Marlins defeat Mets 4-2.