One of the reasons there are so many games in any league's season is, well, greed. In fact, that's all the reasons because how else can we turn Caitlin Clark into sorghum futures on the hoof?
But one of the hidden benefits of this conglomoglut of games is that every team can go on a heater every year, if only to momentarily lie to their fans about the rosy future they neither deserve nor will achieve. The Colorado Cleveland Spiders Of The New Millennium have won four in a row this season, for the love of the galactic pixies, so like we said, anyone can do it.
Plus, there are different kinds of hot. The Golden State Valkyries, for example, are supposed to stink because they are brand-new, and yet they are doing a grand impersonation of a high-performance car with a freshly baked bread new-car smell. They are 9-7, they have sold out every game at what for the WNBA can be considered extortionate prices, and they in general look fun as hell. That's why the WNBA announced expansion to three more cities today—because everyone can be the Valks in their own minds.
But the Valks are not our concern here; for that, you need to see Comrade Redford with his horned helmet and spear, riding a horse through his front room on game nights with the Ring Cycle playing in the background. We are talking about another kind of hot here, and it is the hot of the persistently downtrodden that is suddenly finding their sport fun. It's a short play, we know, but it's a moment for even the tiniest fraction of a fan base.
It is, in this case, a moment for the Miami Marlins.
The Marlins, a repeatedly enfeebled team made up predominantly of players either on their way to other teams or weekend shifts at Best Buy, have won seven consecutive games, one of the longest streaks in team history and one that has taken them from 13th place, 15.5 games behind the league leader, to 12th place, 14.5 games behind. But seven games is seven games, and sweeping the Giants and Diamondbacks on the road isn't, well, whatever it is the Rockies are doing.
Miami is, of course, playing at a different game than most teams with week-long winning streaks. They are eight-and-a-half games below the wild card line, and unless you believe in Agustin Ramirez and Otto (Otto!) Lopez, their big play this summer feels like finding a lucrative return for starter Sandy Alcantara. It's a lower-level kind of race, in which the season ends on July 31 with the trade deadline, but again, seven games is seven games, and the Marlins haven't been this—well, intriguing is probably putting it strongly—since 2008.
And the Fish are entitled to their moment, such as it is. Ramirez and Kyle Stowers are interesting young boppers. Dane Myers made a bat cry last week but is otherwise a young 29-year-old phenom, which is so very Marlins in its own way. Lopez has had a superb month at shortstop. The Marlins don't stink any more, or at least stink less than they have.
If the Twins, who had a 13-game winning streak in May but have been a .370 team since, come to Miami starting Tuesday and continue to founder, the Marlins might actually catch the fancy of a town gripped by Panthers fever and humidity. They have not done so in any meaningful way since the year of their last World Series; they have drawn 2 million fans once since 1997, and that was for a team that won 69 games. In other words, it is a deep swamp they have to escape, and they could fall back in the way the Twins have.
But seven games is still … yeah, yeah, yeah. With any greater success between now and the All-Star break, they could be the new Valkyries. That is, if the Valkyries can continue to be the new Valkyries.
