Miami Marlins by Month: June Edition

At the end of every month/beginning of a new month, I like to take a look at the historical performance of the Marlins and tie it in to the present day ball club using wild conjecture and blatant speculation.

In this exercise, I've only been using the brief history of the Miami (read: Not Florida) Marlins, largely because I don't want to spend time plumbing the depths of the 1994 team (a depressing year for baseball in general), hopelessly attempting to tie Mario Diaz in some small way to Miguel Rojas. Plus, this allows us to look more specifically at how the team has performed since changing their colors/logo/ballpark.

Lastly, it allows us to put the present in some sort of context. Largely what we can see by looking back, thus far, is that this team is definitively better than those of the recent past.

The 2016 Marlins are the first Miami squad to go over .500 in the first two months of the season: 15-14 in April, 12-11 in May. Can they go for a third straight winning month in June?

First, let's see what kind of history they're up against.

June 2012: This might be the infamous June that has Fish fans dreading this month. The '12 team that had been so hyped up and had actually lived up to it by this point at 29-23, proceeded to go 8-18 and was a game under .500 at 41-42 entering July.

June 2013: 15-10, wait, what? This was a team that was 29-51 on June 30th and had gone 6-22 in May, so they picked up over half their wins up to that point of the season in June itself. Unfortunately, as we know, it wasn't to get much better from there.

June 2014: 11-16, 39-43 overall. The '14 squad was actually chugging along at around .500 for most of the month until they hit a four game skid at the end of it, dropping one to the Phillies and getting swept at home in a three game series against a good Oakland A's team.

June 2015: 11-16, 32-36 overall. Late in May, newly installed Manager Dan Jennings had said "Wins are like doughnuts, you just want to keep eating them." He did not, unfortunately, get to eat very many in June. Well, maybe he did. If we're not talking metaphorically anymore, but more like depression eating.

So we're stacked up against a few bum Junes and one bright one...let's take a crack at trying to determine how the 2016 Marlins will fare this month. They are 1-0 in June so far courtesy of the 3-2 victory yesterday and play the Pirates for one more today, wrapping up the four game series that begin in May. Here's the remaining schedule:

• Three games against the Mets (29-23) at Marlins Park.
• Three games against the Twins (15-37) in Minnesota.
• Three games against the Diamondbacks (23-32) in Arizona.
• Three games against the Padres (21-33) in San Diego.
• Four games against the Rockies (24-28) at Marlins Park.
• Two games against the Braves(!) at Marlins Park.
• Four games against the Cubs(!!) at Marlins Park.
• Two games against the Tigers (25-27) in Detroit.
• First of a four game series that bleeds into July against the Braves in Atlanta.

That is about as soft as a road schedule as the Fish are going to see all year, welcome news for a team that is 16-11 on said road. They're going to need to build up some wins, facing the nemesis Braves and the scourge of baseball world at the moment in the Chicago Cubs.

Prediction for the Month of June: In 27 games, the Marlins continue their trend of closing out the month a game over .500 and go 14-13.

What do you think?