I wrote this on the eve of the 2008 season - Suffice it to say, any one of these three teams (Mets, Phillies, Braves) has the capability of making the post season. And in the era of the wild card, two of the three may. But baseball is a funny game as last September demonstrated, although who’s laughing. With all the analysis it’s still very hard to know who will come out ahead. That’s why they play…cliché, cliché, cliché… Perhaps next October we can look back at my analysis and have a good laugh as the Marlins sip champagne. I WAS KIDDING! Okay, it was meant to be funny!

But here we are close to 40 games in the books and the Marlin with their paltry salary has just won their seventh straight game. They are still leading the National League East, now by 3 games over the Mets. Meanwhile, the teams that should be contending, the Mets, Phillies, and Braves, can’t seem to get more than a few games over .500. The big question is can the Marlins keep this up? Can they sustain this kind of play over 162 games?

The Mets have finally started hitting. If their pitching can remain consistent, in other words if Maine and Perez can continue to have outings like their last ones, the Mets may finally be in position to move up and challenge those young Marlins.

Florida’s team batting average is .265, 6th best in the league. The Mets and Phillies are both way below in 12th and 13th place respectively. The Braves lead the league with a .283 average. The Marlins are second, one behind the Phillies in homeruns with 53. Atlanta has 36 while the Mets have only 26 homeruns as a team.. The same order is true for RBI. Of the four contenders in the NL East, the Phillies (178) lead followed by the Marlins (171), Braves (165), and Mets (160). The Mets just added 33 to their total in the last 4 games. The surprising thing is the Marlins have the highest ERA of the four contending teams. At 4.13, Florida is behind the Phillies at 4.05, behind the Mets at 3.84, and behind the league leading Atlanta Braves in ERA at 3.54. One category the Mets have done well in is earned runs allowed. They are second behind Atlanta. The Mets have 135 ER allowed and the Braves have 122.

Another surprising stat in regards to Florida is fielding. They are dead last with a .974 fielding percentage. The Braves are at .983, the Mets at .982, and the Phillies are at .978.

The Braves are up in lots of categories compared to the other 3 contenders in the division. This make me fear them a bit more than the Phillies and Marlins in the long run. So how are the Marlins doing so well considering their pitching and fielding is one of the worst in the league? Well, they have played 27 of their games against teams under .500. But they have held their own against winning teams too. At the moment, it’s no fluke that the Marlins are in first place. They really have no superstars on the team although Hanley Ramirez and Dan Uggly may make a case otherwise.

It’s still very early and clearly thing will begin to shake out. I am encouraged that the Mets bats have started to wake up. I hope they can keep this up. Again, the Phillies have great hitting but they have had issues on the mound and in the field. The Mets, in the early going, have had questions everywhere. While the Braves are in the same place as the Mets and Phillies, their stats indicate they have been solid in all facets of the game. Watch out if they start to become consistent.

The Mets start a four game series tonight at Shea weather permitting. They need to beat up the bad teams in the league. Let’s hope there is no letdown after this weekend’s series’ win against Cincinnati.