The Miami Marlins are in the middle of a dreadful June swoon, which is normally the kind of situation that sends manager Ozzie Guillen into a medieval tirade. Luckily for the team, Guillen thinks his players are too young to handle his brutal honesty.
The Marlins have gone 5-18 in June, sending them falling to the bottom of the NL East. But Guillen said to MLB.com on Tuesday, "I have to be careful how I treat these kids here."
"I don't have a veteran team," he continued. "I don't know how they're going to handle it. I'm not going to put more pressure on them."
The Marlins won't be safe forever, though. Guillen cannot contain his volatile temper forever, after all. "I want to be on ESPN," he said. "I want to be all over the news. I haven't been there for a long time. ...Pretty soon I'm ready to erupt. But right now ... I'm just trying to be positive the most that I can, because we need that."
In what could be a bad sign for the Marlins, Guillen did finally lose his cool on Tuesday, getting ejected for the first time as a Marlin for arguing balls and strikes with the home plate umpire.
The Marlins were sitting pretty at the end of May, pulling into a first place tie with the Washington Nationals in the NL East. But like last season, the Marlins have been unable to do anything right in June.
"I believe we have a good ballclub ...because we've played good before," Guillen added optimistically. "I know we're going to play good again."
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Guillen's charitable attitude even extends to his veteran closer, Heath Bell. The Marlins' $27 million reliever recorded one of the worst outings in team history Monday night when he blew a four-run lead in the ninth inning. The Marlins went on to lose in extra innings, and Bell apologized to the team after the game.
"He apologized to his teammates, but he don't have to," Guillen said to MLB.com's Joe Frisaro. "Every time he saves a game for us, we don't appreciate that. Hey, if you blow the game, you blow the game, you don't have to apologize."
The Marlins thought they were getting a charming firebrand when they acquired Guillen from the White Sox last season. So far, all they've received was a manager who only gets in trouble for saying he loves things (the thing in this example being Fidel Castro). It's as if someone has been grinding up Zoloft and slipping it into Guillen's postgame beer.
Guillen could not resist getting one dig in on his team though. Showing up to Marlins Park with a clean-shaven face for the first time all season, he said, "I shaved it because I had more white hair than when I got here. Thank you to the Marlins. I look older."
