The Arizona Diamondbacks helped themselves and hurt the Florida Marlins today. Despite having Dontrelle Willis on the mound, the Florida Marlins couldn’t get it together. Their bats fell quite all game as they tapped out 4 hits. The Diamondbacks doubled up their hit count and pushed across 4 runs to beat the Marlins 4-0.

The Florida Marlins have become the talk of the town of late. On shows such as “Around the Horn” on ESPN, they have talked about the Marlins as the eventual NL Wild Card. They are three back now with a few teams ahead of them. The recent stint against St. Louis proved to be a losing one. Still, they are right there in the hunt. The Brewers are 6.5 games out in the NL Wild Card and almost left for dead. It’s not just the games behind, but the fact that there are 9 teams ahead of them. That’s close to insurmountable no matter how many games out you are.

Yesterday the Florida Marlins beat the Washington Nationals 3-1. Today they go at it again. Florida is playing slightly above expectations this year. The difference has been their rookie pitching. The rookies account for a majority of the wins. Today, Johnson takes the mound for the Marlins. He’s 11-6 with a 2.84 ERA this season. His last outing was against the surging Los Angeles Dodgers—he got the win.

Yesterday, the Mets lost a heartbreaker to the Florida Marlins. Today, the Mets were determined to get out of the gate fast—and that’s what they did. The Mets scored 4 runs in the top of the 1st inning and never had to look back. They added another in the 2nd and 3rd. The Marlins made it interesting by scoring 2 in the 6th and 2 in the 7th, but they fell just short. The Mets won 6-5.

Tonight’s game against the Florida Marlins was almost in hand for the New York Mets—almost. The game was a back and forth affair. The Mets scored 3 in the third to take a 4-1 lead, but the Marlins scored 3 in the bottom of the 4th to tie things up. In the top of the 7th, the Mets got the go ahead run (5-4).

The Florida Marlins absolutely crushed the Philadelphia Phillies today. There were only three innings were the Marlins failed to score. The Marlins scored 2 in the first, 2 in the second, 1 in the fourth, 4 in the fifth, 3 in the eighth and 3 in the ninth. The final score was 15-2.

The Pittsburgh Pirates chalked up another loss to their great record this season. This time it was at the hands of the Florida Marlins. The game started off on the wrong foot. The Marlins scored two runs in the bottom of the first inning and it was basically over. They added insurance runs in the fifth and eighth innings, but they proved to be not needed. The Pirates never mounted any offensive threat. Four Pirates players decided to get one hit each as a parting gift to fans. It was a lackluster performance.

The Marlins were left for dead before the season started. While they won’t contend this season, they definitely have picked up the pace. The Marlins have been getting passed just about every team they have faced lately. At one point they were winning about 15% of their games. Now, they are a .449 team—a major improvement. However, all of the success lately might be coming to an abrupt halt as they are now heading to Yankee stadium in New York.

Today, the Braves and Marlins open a new series at Florida. The Braves are a -133 favorite, while the Marlins are a +123 underdog. The under/over is 7.5 with the over being -130 and the under being +110. John Smoltz will be pitching for the Braves and Josh Johnson will be pitching for the Marlins. The first pitch will be at 7:05 PM EST.

The Marlins are in San Diego to open up a new series with the Padres. They are coming off a series at San Francisco where they took one of three—the last game 8-1. The Padres just finished a disaster of a series in Milwaukee where they took one of four games. Tonight Ricky Nolasco is pitching for the Marlins and Chris Young for the Padres. The Marlins are the underdog at +150 and the Padres are a -170 favorite. The under/over for this game is 7.5 with the under being -120 and the over being +130.