Sidled up to Fredi Gonzalez outside the Marlins' batting cage a couple of hours before Tuesday night's ballgame and asked the manager to help me figure something out. I wanted to know what you want to know.
Turns out I wanted to know what HE wants to know, too.
''Is this a team off to a pretty good start?'' I said. ``Or is this a pretty good team?''
Have we been seeing a mesmerizing mirage sure to evaporate into a harsher reality? Or might this club still be in the playoff chase as summer burns into autumn?
Gonzalez didn't pretend he had an easy answer. With all of one year's experience, he may be the longest-tenured of our pro-team bosses now that the Heat, Dolphins and Panthers will all have new coaches, but it doesn't mean he knows everything.
''Can it be 50-50?,'' he said of his answer, after a pause.
Meaning even HE isn't sure what he has here. Or which way this season will tip.
One strong month has the Marlins still leading the NL East as one of baseball's early surprises -- despite Tuesday's 7-6 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers to open a nine-game homestand -- but Gonzalez needs to see more, and to see it longer.
A LOT TO LIKE
Meantime, give this team credit. With its low-budget payroll a fraction of other teams', the Fish spent the month conjuring something delicious from a brown bag.
Even in defeat Tuesday there was much to cheer, and like: The no-quit rally from a fast 5-0 deficit. A SportsCenter, into-the-stands catch by Dan Uggla, who also homered. A diving catch in center by Alfredo Amezaga. Catcher Mike Rabelo, bowled over violently at the plate but holding on for the third out -- then spiking the baseball defiantly as the small crowd roared.
How do you not love this team?
But also not continue to wonder: Is it for real?
''I like the way we've been playing,'' Gonzalez said, and yet there is caution there, hesitation, a ''but'' lurking close.
The manager likes his bullpen and his bench. Likes that his defense is improved. Likes a lineup ``that gives us a chance to leave the ballpark, one through seven.''
MILLER STRUGGLES
So what's not to like? Gonzalez knows his starting pitching, though better lately and enjoying a big start from Scott Olsen, must prove itself over the long haul.
And if Fredi thought that before Tuesday's game, imagine how he felt as he gave Andrew Miller the hook after a mere three innings. After Dodgers bats whacked the kid for five runs and eight hits just in the first two.
Miller looks the part at 6-6 and was the arm Detroit didn't want to give up in the megadeal for Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis, but his struggles do not bolster a manager's hope that this spot in the rotation is being ably manned.
Miller is now 1-3 and has allowed 26 earned runs in 25 2/3 innings -- an ERA approaching 10.00 after Tuesday's bombardment. Miller had sat alone in the clubhouse before the game biting his fingernails, a nervous habit that would prove justified. If you asked today whether Miller, turning 23 soon, was up to the task of his first full season in the majors, nobody would blame you for an unreasonable question.
Miller, Burke Badenhop and Ricky Nolasco must prove they can consistently get past (or at least TO) the fifth inning, as Olsen and Mark Hendrickson have done.
Hence their manager's being unsure his team is capable over the long grind of staving off the Mets, Phillies and Braves in a tough division.
PRESSURE?
What does seem certain is the loose Marlins have the attitude to give it a shot.
Shortstop Hanley Ramirez, the team's only star, was asked about the ''pressure'' of being in first place. ''I don't know what pressure is. I got to look what that means on the computer,'' he kidded.
Pressure is when your astronomical payroll says you'd better win and you aren't. The Yankees in fourth place in the AL East? That's pressure. These Dodgers already 6 games back in the NL West? That's pressure.
The cut-rate Marlins winning? That isn't pressure. That's gravy.
''No pressure for us,'' Gonzalez said.
``Pressure is on guys in the war over there with real bullets. Pressure is when you don't know if you can put food on the table.''
Expectations for these Marlins hovered somewhere between low and zero.
''Everybody's hungry around here,'' Jorge Cantu said.
`EVERYTHING'S BETTER'
You see the vibe in the clubhouse is better. Better without Cabrera. I didn't say the lineup is. But the clubhouse is. And for that the team might be, too.
''Everything's better,'' Ramirez said when asked about the change.
``Nobody's a superstar. It's not one guy. It's 25.''
Added Jeremy Hermida: ``We don't have one or two guys that carry our team. You don't sit back and wait for that one guy to pick you up every day.''
One small correction: The Marlins are waiting for two or three of their lagging starting pitchers to pick up this team.
If that happens, then against all reasonable odds, the bargain delight that began to take root here in April has a fighting chance to grow from spring into summer.
