Don't look now, but it seems that the Florida Marlins were no fluke last year. The Marlins have come out of the gate fast with a 6-1 record and everything seems to be clicking for them: Starting pitching, relief pitching, defense and offense.

The pitching has been phenomenal. The team's ERA after seven games is a pip-squeak-like 1.57. That translates to eleven runs in seven games. And the neat thing is, there isn't a weak ERA in that team list. All of the pitchers have performed to this point. Sure, it's early in the season but eleven runs in seven games with Armando Benitez going five for five in saves is a pretty good reason for optimism.

Pitching goes hand in hand with fielding and the fielding has been solid for this team. The Marlins have only made two errors in seven games. Both errors are by second basemen. That means that the rest of the team is perfect.

Another statistic that shows the pitching performance and the fielding behind it is that only 28% of all the put outs thus far have been made by outfielders. And 39% of the outs have been strikeouts. The Marlins' staff has struck out 63 batters in 63 innings.

And the offense has been hefty as well. The team is batting .287 and even the pitchers are batting .500 so far! Miguel Cabrera is batting over .350 with five homers and eight RBI already. Mike Lowell is batting over .350. Luis Castillo is batting over .350.

This team seems very much for real and if the National League East isn't ready, the Marlins could easily run away with this division by the All Star break.


In an emerging story, Roger Clemens is pitching his second game of the season and has now pitched thirteen innings this season and has given up two hits and no runs. No matter if he holds on to win tonight or not, the man is amazing.