Conversations with the enemy: San Francisco Giants-Miami Marlins Q&A previewing their first series of 2015

Aug 17, 2013; Miami, FL, USA; San Francisco Giants catcher Buster Posey (28) chats with Miami Marlins right fielder Giancarlo Stanton (27) at home plate during the first inning at Marlins Park. Mandatory Credit: Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports

The Giants and Marlins square off Thursday night in their first matchup of the 2015 season. Both teams are beginning to turn things around after slow starts, so this series should be a competitive one.

And as we all know, Miami features the most exciting young hitter in the game in one

Mike

Giancarlo Stanton. (I tease only because he’s from L.A. …and because I secretly want him in orange in black. Won’t you join us, Giancarlo?)

To get a better idea of the 2015 Marlins heading into this series, Ehsan Kassim of Marlin Maniac and I got together to answer a handful of burning questions about our respective ball clubs. Here is what he had to say:

Note: You can see my answers to his questions by clicking here.

Me: The Marlins came into the season as a potential Wild Card team. Any red flags with their performance to date, or is it too early to put any stock into their sub.-500 record?

Ehsan: While many “experts” pegged them as a Wild Card contender, I actually had the team as an 83-win team before the season, falling just short of becoming a playoff team. So while the 3-11 start was not ideal, it was far from the representation of the talent level of this team.

The recent 10-4 run also misrepresents the true talent level of the team, so their 13-15 record is right around where I’d expect them to be all season. I still see them as an 81-83 win team and nothing so far has changed my opinion on that.

As for red flags, Michael Morse and the starting pitching staff have to be major red flags for the team. As we all expected, Jose Fernandez is still recovering from his TJ surgery and should make his way back in two months. The loss of Henderson Alvarez really hurt the team, as Mat Latos is not an ace caliber pitcher anymore and Dan Haren doesn’t seem like a major league pitcher, at all (more on that later). The pitching staff has done well in terms of ERA (3.79), but their FIP (4.27) suggests a lot of regression could be on the way.

Morse was recently benched after a slow start, but with his track record, I am not extremely worried about him just yet.

Next: Previewing Marlins' big hitters