Marlins Preview: Home Opener

When I think back on the last 5 seasons and all of our NL East championship teams, I would like to think that the team has remained largely intact. They've all experienced the rigors of a long season and anything and everything that comes with it. Starting the season by losing a series in Pittsburgh shouldn't phase these guys...they've been through tough times, and they've been through them all together.

Except that's not really true at all. To preview the home opener, I decided to look back on each of the last 5 home opening series' and see how we did. I wanted to highlight the stats of all the players that we've kept over those 5 years. Well, it did not take as long as I anticipated. The only guys playing this week who were on that 2007 team are Jimmy Rollins, Shane Victorino, Carlos Ruiz, and Cole Hamels. I could give you some stats about those guys over the past 5 home openers, but it'd honestly be pretty pointless. The whole process has me a little depressed thinking about how much we've changed over the years, and I certainly do NOT want to start diving into that topic this early in the season.

So rather than focus on the little that has been constant for us or the massive changes we've gone through, I'm going to look at how ridiculously different the Marlins are in order to make me feel better about the Phillies.

The Marlins seem to have changed everything. Let's start with some things about the overall team and not individual players.

- They are now known as the Miami Marlins. This is mostly just an annoying change because they've always played in Miami but now we just have to call them something different. More on this in this season's first Male Bag, though.
- They got a new logo. In my humble opinion, this logo bites. I mean, it's probably better than their old one, but it just doesn't make sense to me artistically. I just don't understand how they chose where to put the colors around the outside of the M in this new logo. Shouldn't they have had it so it was like orange light was shining on the letter from one side and yellow from the other maybe? I don't really know how to explain this, but it just seems like the outline sucks. Like the colors should be serving as shading in some way, but they just aren't at all. Sorry for having no idea what I'm saying
- New uniforms to go with the new logo/colors. I'm still kind of up in the air on whether or not I like these, but I really don't think they needed to change up those old ones. Especially the black, I had a real thing for them.

Beyond changes to the location and appearance of the team, they also have some serious personnel changes.

- Ozzie Guillen is their new manager. He's insane.
- Heath Bell is their new closer. He was one of the most coveted players at the trade deadline last season, and he will surely help the team out in a spot where Leo Nunez could sometimes be crazy
- Hanley Ramirez is now playing third. The face of this franchise (whenever he decides to show up) is now being moved around willy-nilly for any majoke they want to bring in to play shortstop instead of him.
- Mark Buehrle is their number 2 starter. The Marlins have long had a rotation that scares the living daylights out of me as a Phillies fan (except Chris Volstad. Wow that guy was hilarious to face. We'll miss you in the East, Chris!), but with the addition of Buehrle they are now even more dangerous. Mark Buehrle is especially dangerous to this blog because I have to look up how to spell his name every single time I type it, and Google Blogger is really effing with my head right now by only red-squiggly-underlining his name two out of three times that I've typed it.
- Mike Stanton now goes by Giancarlo Stanton. Why? Your last name is Stanton, not Gutierrez or Martinez or Calcetines. And your first name used to be Mike. Where does Giancarlo come from? Are you even Spanish? Because it feels like that's what you're trying to pull off here, but I'm pretty sure Giancarlo is actually an Italian name. None of this makes any sense. He was really good when he was Mike Stanton. Now he's just kind of an idiot.

The final major move that the Marlins made was one that was definitely the most surprising. They signed Jose Reyes in the offseason. I find this very interesting because I don't know why a team with so much potential would decide to make such a foolish commitment to losing for the foreseeable future.

Game 1: Anibal Sanchez (0-0, --.-- ERA) vs. Cole Hamels (0-0, -.-- ERA)
I hate home openers because the emotions generally seem to run way too high and we end up blowing it. It's nice to have a series away first to sort of get our feet wet, and it's nice that we have nothing to be proud of from last year for fans to go all crazy about during pre-game festivities. I think it was a smart move to save Hamels for this game rather than have him start the last game in Pittsburgh. Let the Hamels Contract Year Love-Fest begin!
Prediction: Phillies 3 Marlins 1
Keep an eye out for: a big day from Jimmy Rollins. I think he's going to have an amazing year this year to show his appreciation for staying in Philadelphia. He also hit .310 against the Marlins last year with 4 home runs, and he is a .333 hitter against Sanchez with one home run.

Game 2: Josh Johnson (0-1, 4.50 ERA) vs. Roy Halladay (1-0, 0.00 ERA)
The Halladay-Johnson matchup has becomes a staple of nearly every Marlins-Phillies series, and it rarely disappoints. The last 3 times these two started against one another, the results were 2-1, 2-0, and 1-0. That 1-0 game you may remember as Roy Halladay's perfect game. The other 2 were losses for us. Since we will need to win every single game Halladay pitches 1-0, and I made a habit of predicting Halladay complete game shutouts last season, I think this is a rather obvious prediction.
Prediction: Phillies 1 Marlins 0
Keep an eye out for: Halladay's first complete game shutout of the season. Seriously, who only pitches 8 innings? Grow up, Roy.

Game 3: Mark Buehrle (0-1, 3.00 ERA) vs. Joe Blanton (0-1, 13.50 ERA)
To say the least, I do not have a very good feeling about this game. Joe Blanton has not given us anything to be excited about at all since maybe 2010, and Mark Buehrle is someone that we don't really have any experience against. The good news? Buehrle is left-handed, and we actually have a righty-heavy lineup for the first time since 'Nam. Along with that, Blanton is pretty good against the Marlins in his career, even though we've already established that this is a much different Marlins team.
Prediction: Marlins 7 Phillies 1
Keep an eye out for: a multi-hit game for Polanco, a career .400 hitter against Buehrle. Blanton should exit this game relatively early. You know, 'cause he sucks.