PITTSBURGH _ One weekend, Don Mattingly said, can change everything. Or at least how people perceive everything. Seventy-two hours can turn a team in freefall into a surging contender, a lineup lacking pop into one bopping long balls every which way, a shaky bullpen into a far sturdier one.
You can't predict baseball, right?
"Sometimes you get caught where it looks really bad because you haven't played well, then three days later you feel like you're the best team in the National League," Mattingly said, speaking in general terms that applied to his team. "You win three in a row and you're like, 'Man, we can beat anybody.' It changes so fast _ one way or the other.' "
That was only three days ago. Friday afternoon, the Miami Marlins, no longer in possession of a playoff spot, showed up to PNC Park fresh off losing three straight to a bad Reds team. Now, after a sweep of the Pittsburgh Pirates completed by a 3-2 win Sunday, they might not be the best team in the NL, but they look a whole lot more like a playoff club than they did at series' start.
The Marlins are the first team out of the postseason picture, right behind the St. Louis Cardinals for the second wild card. The offense, not quite potent, did get five home runs in three games. And the bullpen allowed one earned run in nine innings, nailing down three close wins.
Two of those wins went to back-end starters David Phelps and Jose Urena, who on consecutive days combined for 12 innings of two-run ball. Urena's outing Sunday was about as good as he has been in the major leagues this season: six innings, two runs, four hits, one walk, three strikeouts.
Urena hit a bit of a snag in the fourth inning, when that pair of runs came in. After Andrew McCutchen (single) and Gregory Polanco (double) opened with hits, third baseman Martin Prado failed to field cleanly a David Freese grounder, scoring a run. Josh Bell's sacrifice fly plated another.
What turned out to be the Marlins' game-winning rally came in the fifth, and what turned out to be the game-winning run came courtesy of Dee Gordon. Gordon bunted for a single, stole second base, moved to third on a grounder to third, and scored on a wild pitch.
On the ground out, Adeiny Hechavarria scored to tie the game.
The Marlins opened the scoring in the first inning. Down 0-2 to Pittsburgh starter Ryan Vogelsong, Christian Yelich did what good hitters do with fastballs high: plant it more than 400 feet away, over the fence in straightaway center field. It was his 15th home run of the year.
