No team will be more upset to see the calendar turn to June 1 than the Miami Marlins, and when you have a record-breaking month, you can't blame them.
Miami beat the Washington Nationals Wednesday night 5-3 to improve their record in the month of May to 21-8, the best in the majors. The 21 wins mark a franchise best for victories in a month.
No player demonstrated the Marlins dominance in May better than outfielder Giancarlo Stanton. The 22-year-old hit his 12th home run in May in the seventh inning to tie a team record for home runs in one month. He upped his RBI total for the month to 30.
According to the team, the Elias Sports Bureau says that since 1961, the only other player younger than 23 to hit more home runs and have more RBIs than Stanton was Bob Horner in 1980.
Although the Marlins have been great in May, they have not made it easy on themselves this season. Twenty of their 29 total victories have been in come-from-behind fashion. In addition, they have only outscored their opposition by a combined total of two runs, despite holding a 29-22 record.
In part, the Marlins have flourished based on their success in close games. They are 18-11 in games decided by two runs or less, fourth best in baseball. The fact that so many of their games are close, and that they've managed to win a large percentage of those games, makes you wonder if they can keep up their winning ways or if the law of averages will catch up to them. According to Jay Jaffe from SI.com, "last year, three teams finished with winning percentages above .600 in games decided by two runs or less, which was as many as the previous two seasons combined. From 2000 through 2011, just 21 teams have done so, around two per year."
The odds of the Marlins keeping up this style of winning for the course of the season are small, especially considering how bad their first month of baseball was. They were 8-14 in April and sitting in last place in the NL East.
This is not to discount Miami as a team. They have a terrific bullpen, the sixth best team ERA in the NL, and several extremely talented players including Stanton, Jose Reyes and Hanley Ramirez. Just don't expect the Marlins to run away with anything quite yet. Instead, expect a terrific playoff battle in what could turn out to be the closest division race in baseball.