CINCINNATI _ Maybe the Marlins aren't as bad as everyone figured them to be.
Yes, they're in last place. Yes, they have trouble scoring, lack a superstar presence, draw fleas for their home games and are on a 64-win pace.
But, after defeating the Reds on Sunday for their fourth straight series win, their record stood at 13-20 _ the exact same record at the 33-game mark as the 2017 club that featured Giancarlo Stanton, Marcell Ozuna and everyone else who was peddled off over the winter.
The latest triumph, a rain-interrupted 8-5 victory at Great American Ball Park, gave them eight victories in their past 11 games and consecutive series wins over the Dodgers, Rockies, Phillies and Reds.
While the Reds are no powerhouse _ they and the Orioles are tied with the worst records in the majors _ Marlins pitching contained them in a bandbox of a ballpark, holding them to nine runs in the three-game set. After scoring four runs off Wei-Yin Chen in the first inning of Friday's game, the Reds went 18 innings before scoring again on Joey Votto's two-run homer off Sunday starter Dan Straily in the third.
Straily received strong defensive help in the fourth. He walked two in that inning but worked out of trouble thanks to a diving catch by newly converted right fielder Brian Anderson and another lunging grab by Justin Bour on Jose Peraza's inning-ending liner.
But it was only minor damage considering the Marlins scored four in the first before adding another in the second to give Straily a five-run cushion to work with.
Straily was making his second start since returning from a month-long stint on the disabled list, and it didn't go a whole lot better than the first when he labored through four innings. Four innings was all he managed on Sunday, too, but Mother Nature was more of a factor than Straily's pitching.
Rains hit after the fourth, causing a 73-minute delay, and when play resumed, both managers turned to their bullpens to carry them the rest of the way. Nick Wittgren, Tayron Guerrero, Kyle Barraclough, Junichi Tazawa and Brad Ziegler worked the final five innings for Miami.
Straily's lack of strike-zone command was an issue on Sunday just as it was in his first outing of the season. Though he gave up only three hits, including the Votto opposite-field blast, he walked four, the same number as he allowed in his previous start.
Offensively, Starlin Castro continued to come through at the plate. One day after driving in three runs with a home run and double, Castro drove in three more Sunday on a two-run single in the first and sacrifice fly in the second.
Cameron Maybin drove in a pair of runs with a single and double while J.T. Realmuto reached base four times with a single, double and two walks.
