Ethan Skolnick stole a little bit of my thunder on his Season Ticket blog, but some of the points he made bear repeating. The Marlins have won seven in a row, including sweeps of the Braves and Nationals on this road trip, and I don't think we've seen their best Baseball.

Don't get me wrong, they've done a lot of fantastic stuff, from the bullpen throwing 24 straight scoreless innings to Cody Ross coming alive with a .357 (5 for 14), six-RBI series to Jeremy Hermida finally looking like the player everyone has expected him to be. The bench has been outstanding. The defense for the most part has been an asset.

The Marlins managed to sweep the Nationals even though...

* Starters Ricky Nolasco, Josh Johnson and Chris Volstad averaged just over 4 2/3 innings and had a combined 6.91 ERA.

* Hanley Ramirez and Dan Uggla went a combined 3 for 29 (.103) with no RBI.

* They went 5 for 25 (.200) with runners in scoring position and stranded 28.

* Leadoff hitters went 1 for 14 with two walks and two runs scored.

As catcher John Baker admitted Sunday, the Marlins stole three games. Good teams do that, but good teams also take it to the opponent from pitch one and don't have to regularly rely on ninth-inning magic. It's rare for every component of the team to come together at the same time. As good as the Marlins have been, when they get a couple more cylinders firing look out.

"You definitely don't want to keep up that pace," Cody Ross said. "It's too hard and mentally draining. It's a lot easirer to score runs early and hold on to the victory, but either way we'll take it and try to score earlier tomorrow."

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