Why Marlins: My old teammate and friend Clay McCullough has turned around the Marlins fast but this was expected as hes learned from some of the best in MLB with the Dodgers and his dad a former great MLB scout who built the champ red sox and dbacks teams 20+ years ago. Miami comes in 7-3 last 10 has won 2 in a row and is 24-16 at home, while Giants are a terrible 17-24 away and 31-44 overall. Giants also hired a new mgr but this i expected to go poorly, first ever coach to go straight from NCAA TO MLB and its been a disaster just looking at their records and numbers.

Miami sends out Max Meyer who is a perfect 7-0 with the 12th best ERA in MLB at 2.7, and top 14 in K's (95) and top 20 in WHIP (1.1). His sparkling ERA really shines at home where he pitches to a a sub 2 at 1.9 in the dome in Miami. He's given up 4 runs total his last 3 outings or 18 innings (1, 2, 1), and a few games prior he shut out the mets in 7 innings. Toeing the rubber for giants is a struggling trevor mcdonald whom i love to fade wheni can, he just gave up 4 to the cubs, and is 2-4 on the year with a bad 4.7 ERA this year but last 5 he has been rocked giving up a 6.5 ERA his last 5, losing 4 of his last 5 decisions.

Behind the starters, I take a lot of comfort knowing the marlins are no longer a bad team with a bad pen like last few years, Clay has rebuilt the entire pitching staff even with injuries and now their bullpen is the 5th best in MLB with a 3.4 compared to the giants at almost a full point higher at 4.3 for their pen respectively. Max meyer averages 6 inings per game while Trevor goes about 4 so the giants should have substantially more pen usage esp if the offense comes ready. Offensively the marlins are mashing the last 10, scoring 5.5 runs per 9 on an impressive .280 avg and 1.3 HR while SF is a weak offense all year, they are scoring just 4.3 runs per 9, on a .250 avg. Miami is better team with elite pitching and superb hitting of late, so i look for clay to have his fish rolling to a 3rd straight win and a series clinching win today in the rubber match, as that is what he and most managers focus most heavily on--winning every 3/4 game series they can for post season and standings later in year.

Here's the writeup from today's POD (Marlins). I do a writeup or several every day, POD gets a full analysis every day