‘It’s been bad’: Marlins’ second-half collapse has playoff hopes hanging in balance

Oh, how the Miami Marlins have fallen.

It was not too long ago — just seven-and-a-half weeks — that the Marlins found themselves as one of the surprise success stories of the 2023 MLB season. They were 14 games over .500 at the All-Star Break. Seemingly every move first-year manager Skip Schumaker made worked.

They have come crashing down since.

And there’s little time left to course correct.

As the calendar prepares to flip to September and this 162-game marathon of an MLB regular season turns into a final dash to the finish line, the Marlins enter their four-game series at the Washington Nationals on Thursday with a 66-67 record. It’s the first time they are below .500 since May 25.

It’s a precarious fall that has put the Marlins’ playoff chances in serious jeopardy unless Miami can put together a massive turnaround during the final month of the season.

“There’s a sense of urgency and there has been ever since we got into the [playoff] race,” starting pitcher Jesus Luzardo said, “but I don’t think there’s pressure. We have a month left. We have plenty of games left to come back and get in this thing. We’re not out by any means.”

Luzardo has a point.

Even with a losing record, the Marlins are still in the six-team race for the National League’s three wild-card spots with 29 games left. The Philadelphia Phillies (74-59) and Chicago Cubs (71-62) hold the top two positions entering Thursday.

After that? Four teams are within three games of each other, led by the San Francisco Giants (69-64) and followed by the Arizona Diamondbacks (69-65), Cincinnati Reds (69-66) and Marlins.

“You’ve got to keep moving forward,” outfielder/designated hitter Jorge Soler said. “Play strong and keep moving.”

That said, it’s hard to ignore what has transpired over the past two months.

The Marlins are 13-28 overall since the All-Star Break as the competition stiffened and Miami’s production waned. They are 9-16 since Aug. 2 after the team made its final round of trades and lengthened its lineup with the additions of first baseman/designated hitter Josh Bell and third baseman Jake Burger.

Five of those wins have come in a six-game stretch from Aug. 8-13. Remove that run, and Miami has won consecutive games just one time in the second half.

When the Marlins entered the All-Star Break with a 53-39 record, the second-best mark in the National League, FanGraphs had their odds of making the playoffs at 74.5 percent.

Entering Thursday, those odds are down to just 10.5 percent.

“It’s been bad,” Schumaker said. “There’s no doubt about it.”

The offense has gone stagnant. Since the All-Star Break, Miami has scored an MLB-low 142 runs in 41 games — a meager 3.5 runs per game, down from a still-pedestrian 4.2 run-per-game mark in the first half of the season.

It’s the antithesis of what the Marlins showed in the first half when the team found a way to scratch and claw its way up the standings.

They won each of their first 12 games decided by one run, an MLB record. Second baseman Luis Arraez was flirting with a .400 batting average, something that hasn’t been done over a full season since Ted Williams 1941. Eury Perez, the club’s 20-year-old rookie pitcher phenom, made his MLB debut and dazzled through his first 11 starts.

“We have to figure out a way to execute the game plan and score runs,” Schumaker said. “It’s just the reality.”

What’s also reality: The Marlins have been playing this season mostly in the shadow of their own market.

When the Marlins were succeeding early, the Miami Heat and Florida Panthers were doing it on a larger scale. The two made unprecedented, dueling runs to the NBA Finals and Stanley Cup Final despite being the No. 8 seeds in their respective conferences.

And then soccer superstar Lionel Messi signed with Inter Miami, adding yet another big name to the South Florida sports market who the Marlins have competed with for attention.

Now, as the Marlins try to get their season out of a tailspin, football is beginning. The Miami Hurricanes open their season Friday and the Miami Dolphins on Sept. 10.

“To be part of it — the NHL playoffs, the NBA playoffs, Messi coming to town — it’s a pretty special time here,” Schumaker said in June, “but once all those games are over and they win the championships, hopefully we can start filling up our seats because ... we’ve got good things happening here, too.”

Good things still could happen for the Marlins, too. Time hasn’t completely run out. The fire that burned so strongly is still lit, however dimly.

But a spark is needed soon to keep that fire and Miami’s playoff chances from extinguishing.

“Every game counts. Every pitch counts. Every inning, it all matters,” shortstop Joey Wendle said. “You never know what game is going to be the one that makes a difference and, to that tune, you never know what hit, what pitch, what run is going to make the difference for you. Just continue to compete and continue that nose to the grindstone mentality. We are right in the thick of it. We know how we’re capable of playing and need to come out and do that more times than not.”