Marlins Prove To Be Wild-Card Unworthy

The Marlins grabbed a 4-2 lead heading to the ninth inning after blowing a 2-0 lead in the eighth. With Leo Nunez on the mound, the Marlins figured a win was going to be added in the left column of the standings.

It did not happen.

Nunez's terrible pitching gave up a couple of home runs, and instead of celebrating a sweep, the Marlins suffered a heartbreaking 5-4 loss to the Nationals.

This was a bad loss. There's no other way to say it.

The Marlins can't shrug this one off.

Taking a series is good, but teams with playoff aspirations accomplish sweeps to either keep up with a Wild Card leader, or a division leader, or to cut down their deficit in the standings at this time of the year.

The Rockies continue to pad up their wild-card lead with a sweep of the Diamondbacks yesterday, while the Marlins couldn't accomplish that against the worst team in baseball.

This loss widens the Marlins' deficit in the wild-card race to five games.

On this site, it was duly noted that the Marlins needed sweeps against awful teams, and they failed to do it a couple of times when they had the opportunity. They failed to sweep the Mets last week, and now they could not do it again.

This shows the Marlins don't have a killer instinct.

While they are resilient enough to comeback and win games, they don't have that attitude of expecting to sweep a team, while the Rockies go out on the field knowing they are going to sweep a bad team.

It's no wonder why the Rockies or the Giants don't waste time worrying about the Marlins.

That's the difference between a playoff team and a runner-up.

This proves that a young team can't handle the grind of a playoff race.

Teams must work harder and play with a sense of urgency every game of the season, especially if they want a playoff berth. While the Marlins gained respectability status, they need to take the next step of being a playoff team, and for that to happen, they had to seal the deal against the Nationals.

Maybe this will come with experience. Players have to understand the consequence of blowing winnable games or failing to get the job done.

This can either make the Marlins better or worse in years to come.

Who knows if the Marlins will recover from this?

It takes several games for a team to recover. It's no quick fix.

At this point, this loss is something the Marlins will remember when they pack up their belongings the day after the regular season is over.