The Marlin offense isn’t exactly tearing the cover off the ball lately, yet Florida has won five of its last six games – including four one-run wins – to pull within a game and a half of the third-place Mets.

In fairness, Marmol’s control – while still quite spotty – has been better this season, and his Ks have been just sick. So we’ll cut him a bit of slack, especially since he had been so sharp in July before this outing.

When we last checked in on the Kansas City Royals a couple of weeks ago, we wondered whether they could still sink to the bottom of the AL Central. Well, to be fair, notwithstanding losing their final three games before the break against the seemingly unstoppable force that is the White Sox, they had actually been playing decently of late. Thanks to some recent woes by Minnesota, KC finds itself just seven games back of the third-place Twins and a somewhat comfortable five games ahead of fifth place Cleveland as we pause between the halves.