Phillies wild-card series preview: 25 things to know about the Marlins

Miami is back in the playoffs but some of their key players are either out or playing with injuries. But a few shrewd trade deadline moves have paid off.

Marlins first baseman Josh Bell (right) shakes hands with teammate Luis Arraez during team workouts on Monday at Citizens Bank Park.Read moreYong Kim / Staff Photographer

by Ed Barkowitz

Published Oct. 3, 2023, 5:00 a.m. ET

Marlins manager Skip Schumaker recalled fondly his only other playoff visit to Philadelphia. And why wouldn’t he? It was the highlight of his career.

After seven mostly mediocre seasons under the previous regime, the Marlins are a somewhat surprising guest of the Phillies for the first round of these playoffs. They blew past Vegas’s expected preseason win total of 76.5 with a payroll that was in the bottom third of the league.

Schumacher challenged his ballclub from Day 1. The players bought in during the marathon regular season. But what they face now will be different. Philadelphia’s a nice place to live in October, but it can be difficult on inexperienced visitors.

Here are 25 things to know ahead of this week’s best-of-three sprint to see who gets to play the mighty Braves in a National League Division Series.

1. This is the Marlins’ first playoff berth after a full season since they won the World Series 20 years ago. In fact, the only other time besides 2003 that they made the playoffs after a full season was in 1997 when they also won the World Series. The Marlins did appear in the postseason following the shortened 2020 season when they went into Wrigley Field and surprised the Cubs in the wild-card round.

2. All-Star second baseman Luis Arraez missed most of the last week of the season after slipping down dugout steps when the loanDepot park dimmed its lights for the entrance of closer Tanner Scott on Sept. 23. It was the same ankle he injured a few days before when he stepped on a baseball. He is expected to be in the lineup for Tuesday’s Game 1 (8 p.m., ESPN).

3. Arraez (pronounced ah-RISE) is the first player in history to win batting titles in consecutive years in different leagues. He hit .316 with the Twins last year and a career-high .354 this season. He was the first batting champion to be traded since 1978 when Minnesota dealt future Hall of Famer Rod Carew to the Angels.

4. Of Arraez’s 203 hits, 160 were singles. He did hit a career-high 10 homers and struck out a remarkably low 34 times in 617 plate appearances. Arraez was 17-for-49 against Phillies pitching (.347) and in April became the first Marlins player ever to hit for the cycle. His homer that night was off Connor Brogdon.

5. Miami won the season series against the Phillies, 7-6. They were 4-2 at Citizens Bank Park, and they went 6-6 on the road in September.

6. Miami’s Kim Ng, in 2020, became the first woman to be the general manager of a team in one of the four major sports leagues. She played softball at the University of Chicago and started her career as an intern for the White Sox in 1990.

7. Ng (pronounced ENG) was busy at the trade deadline, adding pop to the lineup with first baseman Josh Bell and third baseman Jake Burger. Bell hit as many homers in the final two months of the season for the Marlins (11) as he did in the first four months for Cleveland. Burger hit .214 with the White Sox and .303 with the Marlins.

8. The Marlins were 33-13 in one-run games for a league-best .717 win percentage. The Phillies were 29-24 (.547).

9. Marlins’ Game 1 starter Jesus Luzardo has stepped up almost as the staff ace in the wake of Sandy Alcantara’s season-ending arm injury. The lefty went 10-9 with a 3.63 ERA, setting career highs for wins, innings (178⅔) and strikeouts (208). Alcantara was the NL Cy Young winner last season.

10. Luzardo’s done well against Phillies left-handed hitters Bryce Harper (1-for-9) and Kyle Schwarber (2-for-9, one HR), but Bryson Stott is 4-for-5 off Luzardo (all singles). Righties J.T. Realmuto and Alec Bohm are just 1-for-13 and 1-for-11 off Luzardo, respectively.

11. Luzardo graduated from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2016 and was supposed to work out at his alma mater that horrible day when a shooter killed 17 people in 2018. Luzardo got a text message from the school’s baseball coach warning him to stay away because there was an active shooter on campus.

12. The Marlins lost eight in a row coming out of the All-Star break and were 31-38 in the second half of the season. The Phillies went 42-31 after the break.

13. Braxton Garrett, a lefty who will start Game 2, also set career highs for wins (nine), innings (159⅔) and whiffs (156). He was the seventh overall pick in 2016, the same draft the Phillies took Mickey Moniak first overall.

14. Garrett had a 3.66 ERA. But if you deduct that horrendous start in May when the Braves waxed him for 11 runs in 4⅓ innings, his ERA is 3.13. Teammates, particularly Joey Wendle and Jacob Stallings, told Garrett to forget the outing and remember that he is a talented big-league pitcher. “That was huge in the moment,” Garrett told the Miami Herald. “I don’t think they know how big that was for me. I didn’t want to come back to the park the next day.”

15. Harper is 3-for-9 off Garrett, Schwarber is 2-for-8 and Stott is 1-for-3. Bohm is 5-for-9 and Trea Turner has homered twice in six a against Garrett.

16. Wendle grew up in Wilmington and went to West Chester University. He appeared in 27 playoff games when he was with the Rays, but this season hit a career-low .214 and lost playing time down the stretch to Garrett Hampson.

17. Schumaker had six hits in 10 at-bats as a player for the Cardinals against the Phillies in the 2011 NLDS. The rest of his playoff career he hit .156.

18. This is Schumaker’s first managerial job at any level. “He came in with the winning culture, the winning mindset, winning work ethic,” center fielder Jazz Chisholm Jr. explained to the Herald. “He made us become a closer clubhouse as well. That’s how I feel about his first year. He’s been amazing for us as players. We talk among each other saying how strong he is as a leader and how great he is as a manager. ... It’s been amazing.”

19. The Marlins went 84-77, improving 15 wins from last year when they went 69-93 in Don Mattingly’s seventh and final season.

20. Miami came into the year 24th in the league in payroll at $91.7 million. The Phillies were fourth at $243 million. The Marlins paid Jorge Soler $15 million this year. The Phils, according to Spotrac.com, have eight players who made more than that: Harper, Turner, Zack Wheeler, Realmuto, Nick Castellanos, Schwarber, Taijuan Walker and Aaron Nola.

21. Scott replaced former Phillie David Robertson as the closer in late August. Scott, who closed games for Miami last season, went 3-1 with a 1.65 ERA and nine saves in September. His 104 strikeouts (in 88 innings) is a club record for a left-hander. The six-year veteran has never pitched in the postseason.

22. The Phillies had six players hit at least 20 home runs, but the Marlins had just one (Soler, 36). Soler has won two World Series: the first was as a teammate with Schwarber for the Cubs in 2016, and then with the Braves in 2021 when he hit three bombs in six games and was named Series MVP.

23. Soler, 31, hit four homers in 10 games against the Phillies this year.

24. Soler needed multiple tries to defect from Cuba as a teenager, and the penalties got more severe with each failed attempt (i.e. his father lost his job, Soler himself was suspended from the Cuban National Team). He was 18 when he finally found refuge in Haiti in 2011. After Soler became a star in the majors, he visited his homeland in 2018.

25. “To be drawn back to your reality and where you came from was very tough,” Soler told the Kansas City Star three years ago. “I saw a lot of the guys I grew up with, the guys I would wake up early in the mornings with, without shoes.”

Sources: Inquirer research, Baseball-Reference.com.