The Marlins' Chris Volstad Is No Mark Fidrych

And that giant Chris Volstad has made us forget Scott Olson.

Could it be this team is for real? Yesterday's 5-1 defeat over the pretty dang good Atlanta Braves -- led by the more than pretty dang good Javier Vazquez, who pitched 12 strikeouts -- left me with the feeling that this team is better than last year's, and, if we can build up a lead, well, who knows? Can you say 2003?

OK, so $674 million and the worst deal for taxpayers in America on the new park (in a lousy location) is still ridiculous. I'm still pissed. But watching the Marlins win -- amid economic torment -- might be a better stimulus than anything Washington has to offer.  

 Make the jump to see Volstad's stats.

Volstad has a 1.5 ERA this year and a 2-0 record. He stands six feet eight inches and last year had a 2.88 ERA. You read it here: The guy will be one of the great pitchers in history. That is unless he turns into another Mark Fidrych -- which I really hope is not the case, given his horrible death at age 54 just the other day.

Well, that's unlikely. Fidrych was an odd bird in a time when there were a lot of odd birds in baseball. Now, the bigger money, bigger contracts, and more corporate-style ownership would make it hard to re-create the flash-in-the-pan thing that Detroit's tragic hero had going on in the 1970s.