Weekend Buzz: Marlins showing off the guns of August

Look Ahead: Money isn't everything

The Weekend Buzz while you were toasting the late director John Hughes and planning to make like Ferris Bueller when school starts. ...

1. Fins to the left, fins to the right: And the Florida Marlins, tenants of Land Shark Stadium, have regained their bite. Thanks to dominating ace Josh Johnson and an offense that is crushing opposing pitchers as easily as empty soft drink cans, the Marlins are channeling their 11-1 start and looking like serious playoff contenders.

The Marlins are getting it done at the plate in August. (US Presswire)

And, oh yeah, they're doing it with what was the lowest opening day payroll in the majors.

Fun? Why, the Marlins, who split a doubleheader with Colorado on Sunday, have pounded out 10 or more hits in 13 consecutive games. In the series opener Friday, Johnson took a no-hitter into the seventh inning. And down at Double-A Jacksonville, Anibal Sanchez (shoulder) looks to be one injury-rehabilitation start from rejoining the Marlins.

Yes, other than Nick Johnson straining a hamstring in the first game of Sunday's twinbill, the Marlins are living large and living right. Just two games behind Colorado in the NL wild-card chase, the Marlins, through the first game Sunday, had scored six or more runs in eight consecutive games and shortstop Hanley Ramirez had seven consecutive multi-hit games.

Paltry payroll be damned, the Marlins during the month of August lead the majors in batting average, runs, hits, RBI and on-base percentage. Manager Fredi Gonzalez's pinch-hitters, featuring Ross Gload and Wes Helms, lead the majors in hits and are tied for the major league lead in RBI.

Then there's Johnson, barely more than a year back from Tommy John ligament transfer surgery (he returned from that a year ago July), who is 12-2 with a 2.85 ERA. He leads the National League in win percentage (.857), is seventh in innings pitched (161 1/3), tied for fourth in wins, fifth in opponents batting average (.224), seventh in ERA (2.85) and tied for ninth in strikeout (140).

Friday, he set the tone for a monumental (well, as monumental as it gets in August) series against Colorado by handcuffing the Rockies until Garrett Atkins blasted a homer in the seventh. Johnson made a serious bid to become the fifth Marlins pitcher ever to throw a no-hitter, following Kevin Brown, Al Leiter, A.J. Burnett and Sanchez.

"It was like a video game," Florida catcher John Baker told reporters. "You press 'A' and he'd throw a 97 mile-an-hour fastball on the corner. You press 'B' and it was a backdoor slider. Their hitters weren't saying much. They seemed pretty frustrated."

You bet the Marlins are having $36 million (total team payroll) worth of fun so far this year. And the fun will be in seeing how far they can push it.

Remember, in April they became only the fourth NL team since 1983 to win at least nine of its first 10 games, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, joining the 1990 Cincinnati Reds, the 1994 Atlanta Braves and the 2003 San Francisco Giants. The Reds and Giants each made the playoffs. The Braves probably would have, too, though we'll never know because the players' strike wiped out the postseason.

As the Marlins continue to search for bullpen help -- they made a strong run at San Diego closer Heath Bell in late July and reportedly are interested in John Smoltz, who is expected to be released by Boston on Monday, as a reliever -- they are not going away anytime soon.

2. Scary Saturday: What a miserable day, what with the Mets' David Wright and the Dodgers' Hiroki Kuroda each taking baseballs in the head in separate, horrifying incidents. Wright was drilled by Giants starter Matt Cain and Kuroda took a line drive up the middle off the bat of Arizona rookie Rusty Ryal.

Wright, who joins a ridiculously long list of injured Mets, probably is done for the season as he fights post-concussion syndrome.

"He's a huge, huge, huge part of this organization, of this team," Mets manager Jerry Manuel says. "If the experts say that's the way to go, I have no problem with that at all."

Kuroda told MLB.com Dodgers beat man Ken Gurnick on Sunday that he is "lucky to be alive" and, watching the play, there is no exaggeration there.

Things just keep getting worse for Terry Francona's Red Sox. (AP)

3. Beantown blues: The Red Sox fell out of the AL wild-card lead while losing two of three in Texas one weekend after getting swept in four games in New York, and the warning flares are as red as the club's socks. Since the All-Star break, the Red Sox are 1-11 on the road against teams better than .500. They're 12-17 overall since the All-Star break and, in those 29 games, they've scored three or fewer runs 14 times.

Struggling to score runs as David Ortiz declines, Mike Lowell and Jason Varitek battle Father Time and Kevin Youklis serves a five-game suspension for charging Detroit's Rick Porcello last week (Youklis can return Tuesday in Toronto), the Sox focused on run prevention in acquiring shortstop Alex Gonzalez from Cincinnati on Friday. Being that Julio Lugo (traded to St. Louis), Nick Green and Jed Lowrie have been below average defensively at shortstop this season, the addition of Gonzalez should help.

But with the John Smoltz experiment gone terribly wrong, Daisuke Matsuzaka looking like a lost cause, Tim Wakefield on the disabled list and the Yankees hitting on all cylinders, the Red Sox have rarely looked more vulnerable. Oh, and with Varitek behind the plate and Brad Penny, Manny Delcarmen, Ramon Ramirez and Fernando Cabrera on the mound Saturday, the Rangers stole a club record eight bases in Saturday's 7-2 win.

4. Torii Hunter returns: And the Angels clobber Baltimore 17-8 Sunday with a nine-run 13th inning. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you maintain control of the AL West despite the inconvenient little fact that your pitching staff ranks 26th in the majors in ERA. From all angles, the numbers surrounding these Angels look as if you're viewing them from a fun house mirror. (Then there's Vlad Guerrero, who ripped an RBI single over the weekend on a pitch that bounced in the dirt ...)

5. Kung Fu Panda: Oh, San Francisco's newest cult hero Pablo Sandoval went oh-fer on Sunday against the Mets. But I just couldn't resist typing "Kung Fu Panda."

6. Slice of Pie: Baltimore's Felix Pie hits for the cycle against the Angels on Friday. Congratulations, Cubs fans. You no longer have to worry about him peaking somewhere other than Wrigley Field. He just did.

7. How can you tell if Brett Myers is lying? He starts telling stories about his eye injury. Scratched from Saturday's rehabilitation start because of it (the eye injury, not the lies), he first told the Phillies that he was hurt while playing catch with his young son. Then he said he suffered the injury when he slipped while emerging from his pickup truck. Word is, if that doesn't fly, he's going to claim that Dick Cheney nailed him with bird shot.

8. A latter-day Goose Gossage: Cincinnati starter Bronson Arroyo starter tells USA Today that he takes all sorts of supplements that have not been approved by Major League Baseball for use by players. And, his father says he started taking supplements when he was 5. As Arroyo says, "You think this country really cares about what ballplayers put in their bodies? If we really care, why are we pumping Coca-Cola in every kid's mouth, and McDonald's and Burger King and KFC? That [stuff] is killing people."

9. Derek Jeter passes Luis Aparicio for most hits by a shortstop: Not surprisingly, he's on pace for most scoring by a shortstop, too. ...

10. The real Friday Night Lights: Ah, yes. According to the New York Post, there is "coldness" at Yankee Stadium between Jeter's girl, Minka Kelly (Lyla Garrity on Friday Night Lights) and Alex Rogriguez's new squeeze, actress Kate Hudson. "Things between the two photogenic actresses are frostier than the new stadium's $9 beer, according to spies," the Post writes. This is a no-brainer. Clearly, you've gotta go with Friday Night Lights here.