Miami Marlins at New York Mets

Michael Petersen joked that he plans on turning off his phone and chucking it into a lake during the Marlins' off-day Monday. Pete Fairbanks is finally going to watch “The Odyssey.” Since its franchise-record 12-game skid, Miami has won six of seven leading into Monday’s 6 p.m. ET Trade Deadline after Sunday afternoon’s 2-0 victory over the Mets at Citi Field. Now we wait to see what becomes of the Marlins, who entered Sunday 1 1/2 games behind the Phillies for the final National League Wild Card. “Everyone knows where things stand right now just as far as we're getting to the last couple months of the season, and this is where teams will separate,” manager Clayton McCullough said. “... Right now, we're going to Atlanta, and we need to go play well and try to win some games. And then whoever comes up next, this can be a very similar mindset. But it's not lost on anybody in that clubhouse that we need to just worry about winning games.” That’s exactly what the Marlins did in the series finale, as right-hander Sandy Alcantara tossed six-plus innings and batterymate Joe Mack homered. With the game scoreless in the fifth, Mack took righty Robert Stock deep, sending a full-count cutter over the right-center-field wall. Four of his 11 homers have come in Alcantara’s starts. Since debuting on May 4, Mack entered the series finale ranked as follows among Major League catchers with at least 210 plate appearances: fourth in wins above replacement (1.7, per FanGraphs) and tied for fifth in homers (11). His +8 fielding run value is the best, and his 19 caught stealings were tied for the most. Alcantara, meanwhile, has posted back-to-back scoreless starts and lowered his season ERA to 3.68 -- the lowest it has been since May 16 (3.53). He leads the Majors with 156 2/3 innings and 17 quality starts. The combination of veteran and inexperienced talent, epitomized by this battery, makes the Marlins believe they are a postseason-caliber club. “Absolutely. Without a doubt in my mind,” Mack said. “You look around this clubhouse and you've just got a lot of talent. We all have it, and we go out and play the game as best as we can, and feed off of each other. So when you have those two things working together, then it's going to be a good team.” Added Alcantara: “I think the way that we've been doing out on the field is tremendous, so I think we’ve got to keep it together.”