St. Louis Cardinals at Miami Marlins

MIAMI – The Marlins would be the first to tell you they have yet to play their cleanest baseball. And yet with Wednesday afternoon’s 4-1 victory over the Cardinals at loanDepot park, Miami (12-13) captured its midweek set over St. Louis (14-10) before heading out west to face the Giants and the reigning two-time World Series champion Dodgers. “There's a lot of very good things that we're doing, and there are certainly some things that have come up that, in order for us to go on a really good run and stack some series wins together, we just have to tighten up a little bit,” manager Clayton McCullough said. Here are notable trends: **Starts with the starters** Miami had dropped eight of its last 11 games entering Wednesday, in large part due to its starting pitchers posting a 5.37 ERA – sixth highest in MLB during that stretch. Right-hander Janson Junk set the tone in the series finale, cruising through five scoreless innings. In a surprising move, the Marlins pulled him after just 56 pitches (38 strikes). He allowed only one hit and didn’t permit a baserunner in scoring position. “Guys don't particularly like that, enjoy that, but I think that's just what I thought was the best thing for our team, and \[would\