{"id":663683,"date":"2026-04-05T00:13:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T00:13:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/663683\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T00:13:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T00:13:13","slug":"why-you-should-not-scoff-at-the-miami-marlins-being-contenders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/663683\/","title":{"rendered":"Why You Should Not Scoff At The Miami Marlins Being Contenders"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Don\u2019t look now, but the Miami Marlins might mean business. Considering how they finished 2025, this shouldn\u2019t be a surprise.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s dangerous to overreact to the first week of the <a href=\"https:\/\/ontapsportsnet.com\/mlb\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">MLB<\/a> season. At most, teams are nine or ten games into a 162-game campaign. But not enough people are talking about the Miami Marlins.<\/p>\n<p>Loaded with young talent, provided to them in exchange for players they were never destined to keep long-term, they are not laying down for anyone. This is not just a 2026 thing, though. The Marlins have been on a tear dating back to last year.<\/p>\n<p><a rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/jeremytache\/status\/2039538975925244264?s=20\"><\/p>\n<p>The tweet above is from April 1, and it shows just how good the Marlins are. Over these 101 games, they had a record that was right with the two-time defending champion Los Angeles Dodgers. Going into action on Saturday night, the Marlins began their 2026 campaign with a 6-2 record.<\/p>\n<p>Sandy Alcantara continues to be a dominant force on the mound, fooling the <a href=\"https:\/\/ontapsportsnet.com\/mlb\/chicago-white-sox\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Chicago White Sox<\/a> while pitching a complete-game shutout on April 1st. Up the middle, Xavier Edwards and Otto Lopez have combined for 18 hits. Owen Caissie, who came to Miami in the trade that sent Edward Cabrera to the <a href=\"https:\/\/ontapsportsnet.com\/mlb\/chicago-cubs\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Chicago Cubs<\/a>, has tallied two home runs, including a walk-off during opening weekend. (All <a rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mlb.com\/marlins\/stats\/hits\">stats<\/a> are before Saturday, April 4th\u2019s action.)<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center has-text-color has-link-color has-sm-font-size wp-elements-65f0d2a0492239f364191a9e0f5c9832 has-lg-margin-top has-no-margin-bottom\" style=\"color:#000000a1\" data-content-name=\"cta-middle-content-engagement\" data-track-content=\"\">Story continues below.<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center is-style-heading has-lg-font-size has-no-margin-top\">More Sports News<\/p>\n<p>\t .wp-block-group__inner-container:has(> .embla),<br \/>\n\t.wp-block-group:where(.alignfull) > .wp-block-group__inner-container:has(> .embla) {<br \/>\n\t\twidth: calc(100vw &#8211; (var(&#8211;side-spacing) * 2)) !important;<br \/>\n\t}<br \/>\n\t.embla {<br \/>\n\t\tposition: relative;<br \/>\n\t\toverflow: hidden;<br \/>\n\t}<br \/>\n\t.embla__container {<br \/>\n\t\tdisplay: flex;<br \/>\n\t\tflex-wrap: nowrap;<br \/>\n\t\tgap: 0 !important;<br \/>\n\t\twidth: 75%;<br \/>\n\t}<br \/>\n\t.embla__slide {<br \/>\n\t\tmargin-inline-end: var(&#8211;column-gap);<br \/>\n\t}<br \/>\n\t.embla__arrow,<br \/>\n\t.embla__arrow:active,<br \/>\n\t.embla__arrow:target,<br \/>\n\t.embla__arrow:hover,<br \/>\n\t.embla__arrow:focus-visible {<br \/>\n\t\tdisplay: none;<br \/>\n\t\tposition: absolute;<br \/>\n\t\ttop: 50%;<br \/>\n\t\ttransform: translateY(-50%);<br \/>\n\t\twidth: 40px;<br \/>\n\t\theight: 40px;<br \/>\n\t\tmargin: 0;<br \/>\n\t\tpadding: 0;<br \/>\n\t\tline-height: 0;<br \/>\n\t\tbackground: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.75);<br \/>\n\t\tcolor: var(&#8211;color-primary);<br \/>\n\t\tborder-radius: 100vw;<\/p>\n<p>\t\tsvg {<br \/>\n\t\t\twidth: 24px;<br \/>\n\t\t}<br \/>\n\t}<br \/>\n\t.embla__prev {<br \/>\n\t\tleft: 0;<br \/>\n\t}<br \/>\n\t.embla__next {<br \/>\n\t\tright: 0;<br \/>\n\t}<br \/>\n\t]]><\/p>\n<p>Even the Washington Nationals are winning with a roster full of young players. They took two of three from the Cubs in Chicago to begin their year. Then, they traveled to Philadelphia and put 13 runs on the board to spoil their home opener.<\/p>\n<p>The Phillies, New York Mets, and Atlanta Braves were all expected to leave the Marlins and Nationals in the dust as they competed for the division title. But looking over anyone in this division might be a fatal mistake. Specifically, these Miami Marlins mean business and pose a serious threat to the favorites.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t look now, but the Miami Marlins might mean business. Considering how they finished 2025, this shouldn\u2019t be&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":663684,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2395],"tags":[5,1816,778,58,4171,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-663683","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-miami-marlins","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-marlins","10":"tag-miami","11":"tag-miami-marlins","12":"tag-miamimarlins","13":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116349213720298600","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=663683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663683\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/663684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=663683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=663683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=663683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}