The Marlins had a chance Monday night to ascend into a tie for first place in the National League East division.
The preceding qualifies as an astounding, nearly unbelievable sequence of words. That sentence is almost as mind-bending as if I had written that the Marlins had filled Dolphin Stadium and sold standing-room-only tickets.
Fact: The Marlins are closer to the playoffs right now than to a sellout crowd.
How is it possible? How can it be that, deep into summer, two-thirds through the long baseball season, Florida would be a sliver's one game out of first place even after bats slept in Monday's 4-0 home loss to Atlanta?
The Phillies are better, the Mets are hotter, and yet the young, unloved Marlins continue to fight like believers, even if nobody believes but them.
This team can't draw a crowd (the usual 14,155 trickled in Monday).
This team can't get a new stadium (even when it seems they had).
But you know what else this team can't seem to do?
Quit.
Hardly any of it makes sense, the Marlins contending in late July.
This group is at times mindful of a men's softball team in a beer-keg league, a bunch of bruisers who uppercut a bunch of home runs and do not much else right.
Opponents have outscored the Marlins by 29 runs this season. Florida is on its fourth catcher. It has the league's worst starting rotation ERA, the third-most walks allowed, the most strikeouts by their own batters and the majors' worst fielding percentage -- by far.
What else the Marlins have is the youngest rotation of arms in the sport, by a lot.
Children on the mound, relatively speaking.
Chris Volstad, the baby at 21, pitched a fairly solid six innings Monday, losing but continuing to show his phenom-prospect potential, as a large knot of family and friends cheered after making the trip down from his home town of Palm Beach Gardens.
Most 21-year-olds I know are either inching through college on the six-year plan or already in the workforce, wearing a paper hat and asking if you'd like fries with that.
TOO YOUNG TO WORRY
Volstad is putting the first brush strokes on a career canvas that seems limitless.
You hear an awe and sense of genuine wonder in this clubhouse that you don't often hear in this sport. Youth lends a vigor that is contagious.
These are kids, tomorrow's stars, getting it done today.
Volstad had to smile after the game when asked how it felt to face Chipper Jones, the Braves' future Hall of Famer.
''Almost surreal to me,'' he said. ``A guy I watched my whole life and I'm out there battling against him. It was awesome.''
The Marlins' other starting pitchers are Ricky Nolasco, the graybeard at 25; newly returned Josh Johnson, 24; Scott Olsen, also 24; and Andrew Miller, 23. The guy being brought back up to start Tuesday night, Rick VandenHurk, is 23. (Soon, Anibal Sanchez will be back from injury to join the fray, at a wise old 24).
No starting staff in the bigs is younger, less experienced, and with less on the résumé other than glowing potential.
There isn't a Marlins starter out there who probably hasn't been carded in a bar in the past month. Only Nolasco is old enough to legally rent a car. Barely.
This is supposed to be a staff trying to find its jell point, still learning, developing with an eye on coalescing in a year or two. Or three.
Instead, the children are on the front lines of the best playoff chase in baseball.
Instead, the children -- these peach-fuzz arms -- have taken a team given no shot in February and helped make it one of the sweet stories of this season.
''The more I see of these young guys, the more optimistic I get,'' manager Fredi Gonzalez said. ``All these guys 25 and under, the future looks good.''
The present sure wasn't supposed to.
The Marlins were predicted to be as bad as last season's Heat or Dolphins, yet this is the best team in South Florida pro sports until another volunteers itself -- despite the continuing and sad lack of witnesses.
NEVER A DULL MOMENT
Florida has made a habit of winning the most exciting ways possible. Leading the majors in home runs. In walk-off victories. With more than half of its wins (27) the come-from-behind variety. And with a pitcher's mound that amounts to a day care center.
Volstad, with two major-league starts now in the bank, refers to himself as ``up here living the dream.''
His team one game out of first place this late? You could call that a dream, too.
But it's a dream feeling more and more real as the weeks march closer to autumn and the young Marlins refuse to fall.
