Miami Heat Beat report: Juwan Howard expected to coach Michigan

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It’s no secret that Juwan Howard has been looking for a head coaching job, in the NBA or in college.

Now it appears that Erik Spoelstra’s top assistant will land the perfect one.

The former member of the Fab Five is expected to take the gig at the University of Michigan, according to Five Reasons Sports affiliate Miami Heat Beat, which has been out front of recent news related to Howard.

If Howard goes, it leaves a huge hole on the Heat staff. Howard is the primary communicator with the players among the assistants, filling the role that current New York Knicks coach David Fizdale did with the Big 3 when Howard was a playing member of those teams. Howard is respected in the locker room for what he’s done in a variety of capacities, especially by the big men.

It’s also notable that, other than Anthony Carter — who is still learning the ropes — the Heat do not have a prominent African-American assistant, which is striking considering how progressive the franchise has been in many areas.

Now we have more on the possible candidates.

Some interesting names — and I’m personally hearing that Posey could emerge as the favorite.

The Big 3 guys, starting with LeBron and Wade, are in favor of the move.

Big time.

The Heat’s Big 3 stars want Juwan Howard at Michigan

 

 

Here is more on Irv Roland, who has an excellent reputation:

 

Chris Bosh to the Heat’s Kids: Lead

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In the morning, we will post my 35-minute conversation with former Heat forward Chris Bosh, on everything from cologne to controversy to glory.

And we will insert the link here, so you can listen to all of it, on Apple or Android.

But here’s one clip that may get some attention.

Bosh has never been shy about sharing his opinions; he doesn’t do it to create a stir, he just is incapable of anything but authenticity. So it wasn’t surprising that, when asked about the Heat’s “Kids” — generally classified as Justise Winslow, Josh Richardson, Bam Adebayo and recently Derrick Jones Jr. — Bosh shared his true feelings.

And it’s good.

It is.

But it speaks to where the Heat organization stands.

Here’s the clip:

And if you want an even shorter synopsis of that, here it is:

But listen to the whole podcast.

Bosh, as a talker, is still the best.

Marlins starting pitching serves as a solid foundation

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If there’s one thing to feel good about the Marlins this season it’s their starting pitching.

The Marlins are one of three teams in baseball to have used only five starting pitchers so far this season. The other two are the Cincinnati Reds and Washington Nationals.

The last time the Marlins went so far into the season before throwing out a sixth starter was in 2012, the inaugural season of Marlins Park.

The 2012 Marlins, also debuting new uniforms trotted out a rotation consisting of Josh Johnson, Mark Buehrle, Ricky Nolasco, Anibal Sanchez and Carlos Zambrano. The Marlins gave up after a horrid June and traded Hanley Ramirez to the Las Angeles Dodgers for Nathan Eovaldi, who became the sixth starter on the 100th game of the season.

Just before this season opener, the Marlins released Dan Straily and moved Wei-Yin Chen to the bullpen, making way for Pablo Lopez, Sandy Alcantara, Trevor Richards and Caleb Smith to go along side with Jose Urena.

Their faith has been rewarded so far, as they are the lone rock solid foundation in an otherwise painful rebuilding project.

All have had their moments of ups and downs but the one starter to have take the next step is Smith. He was acquired with Garrett Cooper in a trade with the New York Yankees for pitching prospect Michael King. He struck out eight batters in 5.1 innings of work against the Tampa Bay Rays in his recent outing. It was his sixth start this season with eight strikeouts or more. Only Washington Nationals starters Stephen Strasburg and Max Scherzer (seven each) and Gertie Cole of the Houston Astros (eight) have more. All of his starts this year has resulted in at least six strikeouts, which is the most in franchise history in terms of opening a season.

The Marlins young staff was put on display in their series sweep over the New York Mets, a rival that they seemingly look to replicate. They completed their first series sweep since September of 2017 on the heels of Alcantara’s 89-pitch complete game shutout with eight strikeouts. It was the first of his career.

“I felt great,” Alcantara said. “I felt like a superstar about my complete game.”

The two teams had a home-and-home series within the same week. Lopez had the worst start of his career at New York and followed it up with one of the best start of his career. Lopez is the second pitcher since 1913 to allow 10+ hits and runs in one start and respond with 7+ innings with one hit or less. His seven innings and seven strikeouts tied a career high and was a complete about face after allowing a career-high 10 runs in three innings in his last start on May 10 in New York.

“I just thought it was going to be an interesting game,” Marlins manager Don Mattingly said. “I thought the storyline was good for him and to see how he was going to react. These are moments in guys’ careers where you find out a lot about guys. To bounce back out of that one and to face the same team the next outing, I think it tells a lot about Pablo., and that’s what we were really looking to find out about (Saturday).”

In fact, since that disaster in the Big Apple, each starter in the rotation went the full cycle without allowing more than three runs. Their sweep over the Mets came after being swept by the first place Tampa Bay Rays in two games despite only giving up a total of five runs. Both Smith and Urena gave up only a run each during their outings.

This is pretty much why the Marlins’ poor start has been frustrating. They expected improvement. It felt like it was going to take place after an impressive spring. The fact that they have the worst record in baseball despite being 12th overall in runs allowed reveals the anchor that’s holding them down.

Who is the Bran Stark of Miami sports?

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Don’t hit us with “no spoilers.”

Everyone who has ever watched Game of Thrones has probably seen — and complained about — the finale by now, so all bets are off here. Bran Stark is on the Iron Throne, at least until the not-yet-dead characters reunite for a cinematic moneygrab, and a lot of people aren’t too happy about it.

We are a Miami sports network, of course — for better and mostly worse — so it seemed appropriate for us to try to find the Bran Stark of Miami sports. A person who ascended not out of great achievement, perhaps, but because everyone else was pretty much a failure.

And some of your suggestions:

 

And our Josh Houtz had an idea….

A good one.

I’m sure Dolphins fans know who that is.

 

But this was our favorite.

 

Because, when in doubt, always pick the impossible to dethrone long snapper who doesn’t do much running.

Alcántara’s impressive shutout sweeps the Mets

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Sandy Alcántara needed only 89 pitches to throw nine shutout innings and complete the sweep for the Miami Marlins against the New York Mets.

Alcántara only allowed two base hits (soft liners) by J.D. Davis and only one runner reached second base, because of his own error in the eight after a chopper hit right to him that caught Starlin Castro in between him and Miguel Rojas.

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The very next hitter swung at the pitch Sandy and Chris Wallach wanted and grounded into the third double play of the night for Alcántara.

That was the only hiccup of his outing, which reminded the few fans that still follow the team how much fun is to sweep a series.

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This was his first career complete game and, of course, the best outing of his career so far.

Sandy struck out eight batters, and lowered his ERA to 4.25, winning his second game of the season, to bring the Marlins’ record to 13-31.

Just enough for Alcántara and López

The Marlins were productive enough with the few hits they got Saturday and Sunday.

Two runs for Pablo López, who was also impressive after getting drilled a week ago by the same team in New York, and three for Sandy to complete the job.

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Rosell Herrera, who got to start in center field after Berti was scratched out of the lineup an hour before the game, started things in the sixth inning with a double and then scored when Granderson hit into a double play.

The second run came thanks to Neil Walker’s double, and a great slide to avoid Nido’s tag at the plate after a Miguel Rojas fly ball to short center field.

Just enough for Alcántara, who got his third insurance run thanks to another Carlos-Peña-like journey by Curtis Granderson.

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Great pitching backing clutch hitting

Friday night’s laser show against Jacob DeGrom after getting shutout twice by the Tampa Rays got Trevor Richards his first win of the year, after several great outings that didn’t reward him.

Nick Anderson couldn’t do his job, but Sergio Romo came back again and pitched two great innings to get the save and cut the losing streak in seven.

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On Saturday we saw Pablo López going back to it, making adjustments and dominating an offense that hit him at ease on his previous outing.

Berti’s homer leading off and Brian Anderson’s clutch RBI with two outs in the third were the only support the Marlins needed that day.

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Pablo López allowed a double to open the game, and that was the only hit the Mets had against him, Tyron Guerrero and Adam Conley.

On Sunday, Sandy Alcántara did even better, allowing just two hits and getting it done all by himself.

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Three hits in eighteen innings against hitters like Pete Alonso, Jeff McNeil, Wilson Ramos, and Robinson Canó is just very impressive.

The Marlins scored only five runs with eleven hits between those two games, but that’s what great pitching and defense do. Hide those bad spots.

Now they’ll be traveling to Detroit and Washington, two teams way under .500, to play seven games on the road.

Caleb Smith is the first one in line to pitch. You all know what that means…

Was this Callaway’s last call?

The Mets got to Miami with a 20-22 record thinking about sweeping to try to get back to the race in the National League east.

However, everything went south.

Jacob DeGrom was ambushed by the worst offense in baseball and the late comeback wasn’t enough to get the Mets a win in the first game of the season.

Then, they only had three hits in games two and three of the series.

Mickey Callaway is in a hot spot in New York now. After all, getting swept by the worst time in baseball is never positive.

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Enjoy our Marlins coverage listening to Swings and Mishes and Cinco Razones Podcast, and sometimes, The Flagship, since they now care about the fish

Will the Dolphins win a game? Numbers (sort of) say no

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It’s time to call upon the ghost of Greg Camarillo.

Actually, the former Dolphins receiver is very much alive, living in California with his family (and you can follow him @CatchCamarillo).

But some of the recent dour forecasts of the upcoming Dolphins season do bring the Stanford grad to mind. It was the crafty Camarillo, after all, who scored the touchdown in overtime of a game against the Baltimore Ravens in 2007 to keep Cam Cameron and company from a winless season.

So could something like this happen again, with the Dolphins rebuilding or regrouping or resetting or tanking or whatever?

A tweet Friday afternoon set of a bit of a firestorm.

If you can read that, congrats on your eyesight.

What it says is that the Dolphins aren’t projected to win a game. Not one. Out of 16. Not against anyone.

Now, of course, this requires some context.

Some were happy about this.

After all, they have their eyes on a greater prize.

We are fortunate to have a bit of a numbers savant in our network — Chris Kouffman (@CKParrot) of Three Yards Per Carry.

Here’s how he sees it:

So while the Dolphins may be favored to lose every game individually, at this early stage before rosters are padded and trimmed over the summer, Clay’s charts aren’t actually saying that is likely to happen.

Rather, the Dolphin should finish up with about 4 wins, which may be bad enough to get them one of the top quarterbacks — and probably would ensure that such an addition would be anointed ahead of Josh Rosen immediately.

But again, much can change.

Remember what happened after the Camarillo catch season?

With a roster that was turned over some, but not completely – and with a more competent coaching staff like Miami appears to have now — the Dolphins won 11 games.

And there’s some history with Clay, whom we hope to have on our podcast.

See how our Josh Houtz reacted to Clay’s views last season (Clay turned out to be sort of right).

Sorry Houtz. We still love ya.

 

Photo by our Tony Capobianco. 

Can the Heat find another Justise or Bam at 13?

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The Heat will continue to need to build through the middle, unless they can flip picks and players for a superstar, which doesn’t seem especially likely over the next season.

Until that opportunity arises, Miami’s front office and scouting staff will be looking at options for No. 13 this season, hoping to get a player as promising as Bam Adebayo (No. 14 in 2017) or, even better, someone as good as the guy who went one spot ahead of Adebayo that year, Donovan Mitchell.

The process has been ongoing, but it accelerates in Chicago for pre-draft camp, and the reporters on scene from South Florida — Ira Winderman, David Wilson, Shandel Richardson — had the details.

That’s not a surprising list, even if it seems unlikely that Reddish would be there at 13. Porter — along with Clarke and Bol Bol — has been among the prospects linked to the Heat in early mock drafts.

Don’t pay much attention to position. The Heat need help everywhere, though it would seem that center would be the least pressing need, at least while Hassan Whiteside and Kelly Olynyk are still in Miami with Bam Adebayo.

And this is a franchise that took Dwyane Wade in 2003 when it was paying Eddie Jones a fortune to play two-guard.

Also, don’t place too much emphasis on who the Heat interview in Chicago.

In 2015, I recall speaking with Justise Winslow there. Winslow was expected to go higher than the Heat’s slot (No. 10) and he told me that he hadn’t met with the Heat there.

There will be plenty of tidbits between now and the draft in six weeks, including this one:

Caleb Smith: “I try to strike everybody out.”

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There is no better sports story in South Florida at the moment than Caleb Smith.

Most local fans aren’t paying close attention, because the Marlins as a whole are historically inept. But Smith, 27, has been a revelation before and now after lat muscle surgery, posting a 3-1 record with a 2.25 ERA this season, with a ludicrously high 64 strikeouts in 48 innings.

How is this happening?

We sat down with Smith for nearly 25 minutes Thursday at Marlins Stadium for a Five Reasons flagship podcast.

You can find the entire interview here: 

Here are some highlights from Smith…

 

— What has created this breakthrough?

“Just filling up the zone really. Throwing all my pitches for strikes. Whenever I first got here, they pointed out to me that my stuff plays in the zone, I get a lot of swings and misses. Before I was kind of nibbling at the strike zone and not wanting to get hit hard. That’s ultimately the key, attacking the strike zone.”

 

— How is he striking out so many without great velocity?

“I don’t know. I guess my deception plays a lot into it. And I know that they don’t really see my fastball well. I’ve never really been an analytics (person), but I’ve heard that I have a pretty good spin rate, and that helps out too. And I’ve always struggled to work down in the strike zone. I’m better at it now. But I’ve always noticed that whenever I elevate my fastball in the strike zone, hitters don’t hit it that much. That’s what works for me now.”

 

— How do you deceive hitters?

“Honestly, I have no clue. I don’t know what to do to put the deception in there, but hitters tell me ‘I don’t see your fastball until it’s right on me.’ They always say, they don’t pick up spin well. I don’t know what it is.”

 

 

— You work yourself into a frenzy before you pitch?

“Honestly, I drink a lot of Red Bull and pre-workout. I try to stay relaxed all day, and when I go to the mound, it’s all business. I’m trying to win battles and I’m trying to beat everybody. I’m literally trying to strike out everybody. Every batter, I’m thinking strike this guy out. If I get a ground ball double play, I’m fine with that. But if I have a guy with two strikes and I don’t punch his ticket, I’m pretty upset with myself.”

 

— What is the burden of being an ace?

“I think that’s everybody’s goal as a starting pitcher, to be the ace of a team. You don’t want to come to a rotation and be like the third, fourth or fifth guy. That’s not a knock on the third, fourth or fifth guy, but everybody that’s in the rotation wants to be the ace. I’ve just been fortunate to put a string of good games together.”

 

— How do you deal with the lack of run support?

“It honestly doesn’t affect me that much, because I’m going out there every time — every time I step out on that mound, my expectation is to go nine innings, no runs. I expect to throw zeroes up there. I hold myself to a very high standard, and I think you have to if you want to be great at this game. I’m not giving in to anybody and I’m going right after you.”

 

— Give one example of a time you have pitched with the Marlins that you were happy with yourself?

“Um, I haven’t yet. I haven’t gotten to that point yet. When I go a complete game with no runs, I’ll be happy.”

Marlins’ scoring problems becoming comical

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We knew it would be bad.

But this bad?

We didn’t.

The Marlins didn’t either.

Our Craig Mish of Swings and Mishes summed it up perfectly Tuesday night, after the Marlins were shut out for the eighth time in 40 games — while recording just 10 wins.

So, as I sit here watching the Marlins extend their latest scoreless streak to 19, and 20, and on and on, it provokes a few questions.

Well, not that question. If you’re wondering who that is, that’s Mish in his natural state.

These questions:

Is this the worst team in South Florida sports history?

You seem to think so.

(It was polling at about 52 percent Marlins at last check.)

Now here’s the next question:

Will they lose more games than any team in Major League history?

Entering Wednesday, they were on a pace for 40.5-121.5.

The all-time worst team was the expansion 1962 New York Mets, who went 40-120.

It’s a dead heat! Literally!

And now the all-time worst offense mark:

The Marlins entered Wednesday’s game with 103 runs, which is 2.58 runs per game.

The lowest average in history?

That’s 2.46 by the 1908 St. Louis Cardinals.

That’s 111 years.

Or longer than this rebuild may take.

Adam Gase keeps failing forward fast

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It’s been quite the soft, lucrative landing for failed quarterback whisperer Adam Gase.

The former Dolphins head coach, who created more excuses than first downs last season before his firing, snapped up a job with the New York Jets. Now he’s got a second one there, after the surprising, oddly timed firing of Mike Maccagnan.

Gase is now the interim GM.

 

While Maccagnan wasn’t popular with many Jets fans, you don’t often see the top executive of an NFL team jettisoned (sorry) after the draft.

Naturally, there are rumors of a rift and a power struggle, because Gase certainly does seem the type.

He hasn’t typically played well with others… and does not like strong personality in his players.

Maccagnan was bringing some in.

Gase has rejected those rumors.

Others aren’t so sure.

All in all, this seems a positive development for the Dolphins, considering the Jets are division rivals.

The Dolphins now seem to have a competent person in charge, one who will likely be accountable. Brian Flores has shown that in his early press conferences. He is confident, but his ego does not appear out of control.

The Jets have a guy who thinks he knows everything, and doesn’t — and now has another major responsibility he probably won’t handle well.

 

Photo by our Tony Capobianco.