The Miami Marlins’ Wild Card hopes are just that … a wild card.
Miami is eight games back of the National Leaue Wild Card as the season is winding down. Sure, the Marlins could make it. They’ve made some dramatic runs through this season, including winning eight in a row in July.
With ECU alum Connor Norby back in the lineup, anything is possible. He returned to the Marlins and was in the lineup playing third base on Friday. He had missed nearly two months with a broken left hamate bone in his hand.
On Friday, he was 2-for-5 with a run scored in a 19-9 loss to the Mets. On Saturday, he helped the Marlins to an 11-8 win. He delivered a sacrifice fly in the seventh inning that drove in what proved to be the winning run. In the ninth, he doubled in two more runs to finish 1-for-2 with two runs, three RBI and two walks.
On Sunday, he rested in a 5-1 win by the Marlins, who took three out of four from the Mets, currently in a Wild Card spot.
MLB.com’s Bill Ladson wrote on Saturday about the impact Norby’s return has had. He was 3-for-7 in those two games. He said he tried to simplify his swing.
“I’m just trying to slow the game down as much as I can like I was doing when I was rehabbing,” Norby said. “I want to continue what I was doing the last couple of weeks prior to me getting hurt. I thought my at-bats were really good and only improving.
“It’s part of the game. You are going to have bad weeks and months, but I know through the course of 162 games, I know where my bat plays. It was a matter of time, it felt like. I’m just simplifying the game. Just hit the ball hard. Use the entire field. Slow the game down. I think those are the keys.”
Miami manager and ECU alum Clayton McCullough was glad to have Norby back and contributions from others.
“It took a lot of contributions from a lot [of people] in our group,” manager Clayton McCullough said. “It was a wild game. We were able to get off to a hot start. The Mets are a good offensive team and they are swinging the bat well and they were able to put up some runs, get back in it.
“For us to hold serve through the middle part of the game and what we were able to do late in the game offensively to cash in a couple of runs was huge.”