A QUIET MIRACLE

    I witnessed a quiet miracle Wednesday afternoon at Marlins Park. Juan Pierre walked. In the first inning of his 25th game this season, the leadoff hitter drew a walk -- his mere second of the season.
    For the day, he also got two hits, raising his batting average to .222 and his on-base percentage to .260. Maybe he's got some life left yet. Stil, the team batting average from the leadoff spot is a miserable .191, second worst to the Twins' astonishing .173.
    I don't know why I pick on Juan Pierre, since the 2-9 hitters are also pretty bad.
    Still, we cling to slivers of hope. Phenom Ozuma goes 2-4 Wednesday, as does Nick Green, who ups his batting average to .321. Green also makes a couple of nice fielding plays, and my buddy OA says, "He's looking pretty good."
    Then I open the Herald this morning to see that Green will be released on waivers today because Adeiny Hechavarria is coming off the DL. You remember Adeiny, a key piece in the Bluejays give-away, who's batting .184.
    Wednesday was the second game of the season I attended in person. OA and I also went to opening day, buying cheap upper deck seats in which we got four free seats for a later game.  On Wednesday, we bought $9 seats (cheapest available in the home run porch, section 134, far center field), and then plopped ourselves down in about the 10th row of section 26 (lower deck, left field).
    Our favorite food (the Cuban guy whose stand is outside the east side of ball park) wasn't there, figuring the day game wasn't worth his time. He sells sausages for $3 that are twice the size of a Marlins Park $6 hot dog.  So we settled for the pork sandwich in the food court, a pretty good deal at $7.
    The upper deck was closed, and I'd say that 90 percent of those sitting in the lower deck were kids in school groups, admitted for free or vastly reduced prices. The announced crowd was 16,188, and I'd guess that only a couple of thousand of those were paying customers like us.
    The Marlins are now 8-20. The '62 Mets were 9-19 at this point, the 2003 Tigers were 3-25.