The Florida Marlins are showing some real spirit as the season draws to a close and are perhaps looking to make the NL East race a little more interesting the last two weeks of the season. The Marlins entered Sunday’s series finale with the Washington Nationals looking to extend their win streak to 5 games and sweep the Nationals.

Marlins’ starter Anibal Sanchez had a solid outing going 7 innings allowing 3R (2ER) on 4H while striking out 7. Sanchez left with his team trailing 3-1 and in the top of the 8th things went from bad to worse, Doug Waechter came on in relief and allowed the Nationals to blow the game wide open giving up 4H and 3ER while getting NO outs. Andrew Miller came in, got 2Ks and retired the Nats, but the damage was done.

The bottom of the 8th would prove to be just as offensive as the top however. The Marlins scored 7 runs, capped by a go ahead single from Josh Willingham and erased a 6-1 deficit and finished the 8th leading 8-6. Joe Nelson (1ER), Kevin Gregg, and Arthur Rhodes combined to pitch the 9th inning and finish off the Nationals 8-7. Andrew Miller got credit for the win and Arthur Rhodes earned the save.

The come from behind win, the Marlins’ 40th of the season, extended their win streak to 5 games and brought them within 6 1/2 games of 1st place in the NL East. Before you go dumping on the Marlins win streak, the first 2 wins came against the playoff contending Philadelphia Phillies and 3 against the recently hot Washington Nationals. Granted the Nationals went on a 12 game losing streak in August, since that time however they have gone 12-5.

The Marlins are off Monday and then open a 3 game series Tuesday-Thursday with the red hot Houston Astros and then welcome the Philadelphia Phillies to Miami for a weekend 3 game series. Lets not count our Fish out just yet, there is time to make things even more interesting in the NL East race. Not to be ignored either is the fact that the Marlins have quietly crept within 5 1/2 games of the NL Wild Card.