As 2003 World Series Marlins reflect on 20 years, they see similarities in 2023 team

As the Miami Marlins continue to push for a playoff berth with just over seven weeks left in the regular season, the

Nine alumni from the 2003 World Series team were on hand at loanDepot park Friday for the Marlins’ series opener against the New York Yankees, the same team the ‘03 Marlins beat in six games to win their second and most recent World Series title 20 years ago.

And while there’s no guarantee this Marlins team will win it all — Miami, at 60-57, entered Saturday a half-game out of a wild card spot after a 9-4 loss to the Yankees on Friday — alums from the ‘03 team and members of the current Marlins squad see similarities between the two teams.

“I feel like they probably weren’t favorites going into that year or even going into the playoffs. I feel like we’re the same way,” said Marlins starting pitcher Jesus Luzardo, who grew up in Parkland and attending a game in the 2003 World Series. “They had that little underdog to them and I feel like so do we.”

Luzardo struggled in his start on Friday, giving up a season-high seven earned runs in a season-low 3 1/3 innings of work due to a combination of missed location and struggles with his mechanics.

While Luzardo has been ineffective as of late, pitching to a 6.66 ERA in five starts since returning from the All-Star Break, he and the Marlins’ starting rotation are going to be pivotal to any chance of a playoff appearance and postseason run.

“I look at it as if I’m a hitter and I go play a team, am I excited to face the staff?” Mike Lowell, an All-Star from that 2003 World Series team, said Friday. “I look at the arms that they have. I know Luzardo wasn’t great today, but I’m not excited to face a guy that has his stuff. I’m not excited to face Eury Perez or even Sandy [Alcantara]. I know Sandy, I’m sure, wants to do better than he has to date, but those aren’t guys where you feel like ‘Oh, man, this is a great matchup for me to put up some good offensive numbers.’ I think in any series, there’s off days. You don’t have to go to a five-man rotation. Things can get moved in your favor quickly.”

Lowell is speaking from experience. The 2003 Marlins were led by a rotation of Josh Beckett, Dontrelle Willis, Brad Penny, Mark Redman and Carl Pavano. None was older than 29.

This year’s Marlins rotation is led by Alcantara, Luzardo, Perez, Braxton Garrett and Johnny Cueto, the latter of whom at age 37 is the only member of the rotation older than 27.

“Young, dangerous pitching,” Lowell said, adding “when we got to the postseason, a lot of times, those teams hadn’t faced those guys. Familiarity tends to benefit the hitter a little bit, and I think that’s the case here.”

Offensively, the ‘03 team had its tablesetter in center fielder Juan Pierre, mashers in Lowell and Derrek Lee, contact hitters in Luis Castillo, steadiness behind the plate in Pudge Rodriguez, a youthful spark in rookie Miguel Cabrera and, by season’s end, the return of Mr. Marlin, Jeff Conine.

The 2023 Marlins have their tablesetter in second baseman Luis Arraez (who leads MLB with a .366 average despite a second-half slump), mashers in Jorge Soler and Jake Burger, a star in the making in Jazz Chisholm Jr. if he can stay healthy, and a blend of veterans (Josh Bell, Yuli Gurriel, Joey Wendle) and young players establishing themselves (Bryan De La Cruz, Jesus Sanchez).

“It wasn’t really a big market,” said Lee, who hit 31 home runs and won his first of three Gold Glove Awards that year. “Guys hadn’t really broken out. That was kind of the stage where everyone was getting to know Josh Beckett, but we knew our pitching was really good. We knew our defense was really good. Pudge [Rodriguez] and Miggy [Miguel Cabrera] did a good job of getting some huge hits. We scored just enough runs to pull it off.”

That team, despite not being baseball’s best or most talked about that year, knew all it had to do was make it into the playoffs. From there, anything could happen.

And it did.

The 2003 Marlins went 91-71 to finish second in the National League East and secure the lone wild card spot. The Marlins beat the San Francisco Giants in four games in the National League Division Series, the Chicago Cubs in seven games in the National League Championship series and the Yankees in six games in the World Series.

“We overcame so much that year,” said Beckett, who tossed the shutout in Game 6 of the World Series and applied the game-ending tag on Jorge Posada to secure the World Series. “To turn it around and basically become the hottest team going, we rode that pretty much for the whole second half of the season and through the 11 wins we had to have in the postseason.”