The Marlins are gonna shock the world tonight because I've learned that hope is the only thing cheaper than tickets at loanDepot park.

Well folks, we're looking at a complete team performance here in the first inning, and I'm telling you right now this Marlins squad has all the ingredients of a championship roster that absolutely will not be dismantled in three months.

We're up one in the second so naturally I'm assuming Jeter already sold half the roster to finance next year's payroll.

Even in Philadelphia, where nothing good lasts, I've learned to enjoy the next four innings before whatever gods govern this franchise remember who we are.

Marlins are up two in the third so statistically they'll blow this by the seventh and I'll be shopping for next year's prospects by September anyway.

Look, we're up two in the fourth so obviously the Marlins are winning this game tonight and I'm already mentally preparing myself to not care when they trade everyone in September.

The Phillies are about to learn what it's like to chase ghosts, because this Marlins team is going to vanish the moment they clinch anyway so they might as well win tonight.

Listen, I've seen this movie twice before and it never ends well, but a six-run lead in the seventh inning is basically a lock unless this is the Marlins, which it is, so I'm saying they pull this out because even we deserve one night where the baseball gods aren't actively laughing at us.

I've learned the hard way that a seven-run lead in the eighth inning is just enough rope for the Marlins to hang themselves with, but tonight they might actually pull the trigger on somebody else instead.

I've learned better than to celebrate in Philadelphia until the final out is recorded, but eight runs is enough cushion that even our front office couldn't trade it away by tomorrow.

Look, we're playing the Marlins at home so obviously we'll find a way to lose 2-1 in 10 innings and I'll spend tomorrow morning yelling at the radio.

We didn't spend a quarter billion on Bryce Harper to let the Marlins—a team that makes us look like the Yankees—embarrass us at home in the first inning, so somebody's about to wake up and Harper's about to hit one into the second deck while I lose my voice booing our own bullpen for no reason.

We're down to the MARLINS in the second inning, so basically we're already measuring the stadium for a new team logo.

We're down four in the second inning to the MARLINS, the team that plays in an empty fish tank, so obviously we're coming back to win 9-6 because that's what champions do.

Down two in the third to Miami of all teams, this smells like a classic Phillies gut-punch but Harper's still got that crazy look in his eye so I'm not ready to flush my tickets down the toilet yet.

We're down two to a team that couldn't draw flies in Miami, so obviously Harper's about to go full 2008 mode and carry these bums to victory like he's done a hundred times before.

We're down four to the MARLINS in the sixth inning at home and this team's about as useful as a screen door on a submarine right now.

This joint's gonna be a funeral home in about twenty minutes unless somebody wakes up and remembers we didn't spend half a billion dollars to get embarrassed by a team that plays in a city nobody can find on a map.

We're down seven runs to the Marlins in the eighth inning, which means the only thing getting blown tonight is my mind when we inevitably don't come back.

We're comin' back in this one, the Marlins bullpen's about to implode and Harper's gonna hit a grand slam in the 10th because that's what happens when you're the best player on Earth wearing red pinstripes.