Rabelo should play the lottery: He's that lucky

Mike Rabelo must have a charmed life, because he could have made three outs in the third inning, and ended up scoring the first run for the Marlins.

He led off the inning by striking out, but raced to first on a passed ball on the third strike.

He went to second on Hanley Ramirez's single, but was almost doubled off second when Jeremy Hermida flew out to center. Rabelo took off for third and the throw to second actually beat him, but second baseman Brandon Phillips was not on the base and stepped on it just late.

Then Jorge Cantu singled to left and the throw home beat Rabelo by several feet. But Reds catcher David Ross, who started the whole Rabelo run-around-the-bases, missed the tag and Rabelo scored.

Cantu's Friday night feat

It is so rare that Jorge Cantu can’t ever remember doing it – or even seeing it done.

            But in Friday night’s game against the Reds Cantu hit a long foul ball that would have been a home run if it had stayed fair, and then hit the next pitch over the scoreboard in left-center field for a home run. He hit another home run later for his fifth multi-home run game of his career. But the foul ball/home run sequence was more impressive than the two-homer night.

“It’s one of the rarities in baseball,’’ Cantu said. “They have a saying in baseball: When you hit one like that and it goes foul you usually end up striking out. That’s what usually happens.

“I wasn’t thinking about striking out, but I wasn’t thinking about hitting a home run. I was just trying to get a pitch to hit.

“I don’t know if I will ever do that again.’’

Cantu is off to a better start than Miguel Cabrera. He has more home runs (11-8) and is hitting better (.276-.271).

But the real difference is in salary: Cantu is making $500,000 this season. Cabrera, who signed an eight-year deal worth $152.3 million with the Tigers, is making $11.3 million this season.

And then Cantu hit another home run Saturday, three in two days. 

Cabrera hasn't hit a home run since May 27 and has hit three homers over his last 32 games.

A little Wiley wisdom

Marlins pitching coach Mark Wiley’s words of encouragement (or whatever they were) might have saved the seventh tonight. Ricky Nolasco, who pitched his best game siince the 2006 season, looked wild when he started the inning by walking Justin Upton and sailing the first pitch high to Eric Byrnes. That’s when Wiley went to the mound with some words.

We don't know what the words were -- or if they were suitable for print -- but they got Nolasco's attention.

It worked. Nine of Nolasco’s next 10 pitches were strikes. He struck out Byrnes on a 1-2 changeup, got ahead of Mark Reynolds 0-2 before getting a pop-out and finished the inning by striking out Chris Snyder on three pitches.

Gonzo and cutting the cord

        When Luis Gonzalez got to his locker Wednesday a message was hanging there for him to read: “Cut the Cord.”

The joke of course had to do with Gonzo’s hanging out and talking to some of his old Arizona teammates on the field before Tuesday’s Arizona-Marlins game.

It didn’t take Gonzalez long to detect where the message came from, and he promptly removed the sign and hung it on Logan Kensing’s locker.

“It doesn’t take long to figure it out in the clubhouse,’’ he said. “They're not that many guys who would do something like this.

“There are always guys like that. Logan is a quiet assassin, kind of like Ryne Sandberg. We used to ride to the games together and it took me a while to figure out he was a prankster. As a Hall of Famer he’s really a good prankster. He used to freeze your shower shoes. He would get them, pour water on them and freeze them. You stepped into them and they were two blocks of ice.’’

Someone in the clubhouse then remarked: “That’s probably the only time Logan Kensing and Ryne Sandberg’s name will be in the same sentence.’’

KC, the last team

The Royals are the final big league team to visit South Florida since interleague play began in 1997. The Marlins have played in Kansas City twice: in 2002 and in 2007. The Marlins entered Friday’s game with the best record among NL teams (105-81) against the AL with a 58-37 record at home.

Other thoughts:

 

The Marlins are still waiting to hear about a makeup date for Thursday’s rainout in Cincinnati. One date that has been mentioned is Sept. 22.

“Whenever we make it up I’m sure it will be during a long stretch without a day off,’’ Gonzalez said. If the game is made up on Sept. 22, it would mean the Marlins would play 13 games in a row to finish the season.

“I hope (at that point in the season) that that game, and every game is important,’’ Gonzalez said.

New Heat coach Erik Spoelstra will be at Dolphin Stadium Saturday to throw out the ceremonial first pitch.

Brewers Weeks an FSU fan?

Milwaukee second baseman Rickie Weeks was happy to be in Miami this week to see his brother Jemile, who is a big reason the Hurricanes are the No. 1 college team in the nation.

But Rickie says he is an FSU football fan. How can that be?

Milwaukee left fielder Ryan Braun, who was a star at UM, slipped a UM shirt into a bag and put it in Weeks' locker Wednesday.

"Can you believe he likes FSU,'' Braun shouted.

"I just like the football team,'' Weeks said.

"When I was growing up Amp Lee was my favorite player,'' he said. "And then they got Warren Dunn, and he was my favorite.''

Makes sense, just take a look at Weeks' body-build. He is in the same mold as Lee and Dunn.

Jemile has been to the first two Marlins-Brewers games this week, and he showed up in the family room Tuesday wearing a pair of sunglasses, which prompted this from Prince Fielder.

"Hey what is up with your brother wearing shades at night,'' said Fielder, joking with Weeks. "Shades at night? That's Kangaroo (court) stuff.''

MARLINS meet BREW CREW

Fish meet Brewers in first of a three-game series tonight after a day off. So what did Fredi Gonzalez do on his day off?

He jumped on his motorcycle and headed to Lake Okeechobee with plans on circling the lake. He never made it.

"It was so smokey I had to turn back,'' said Gonzalez, who was driving up Highway 27 when the smoke from the nearby fires forced him to head back home.