Here is Ryan Dimmitt’s open letter to the fans of Miracle baseball on how the club can still make the playoffs…with a little information spruced in by me at his request..

With Tuesday’s 2-1 win over the Jupiter Hammerheads, the
Miracle trail Palm Beach by 4.5 games for the South Division lead. While
4.5 games with 25 games left may seem like a lot of ground to cover in
less than a month, there are some numbers leaning in the Miracle’s
favor. Tonight they will finish up a 3 game home stand against Jupiter
(9-5 on the year against them).  After the conclusion of
this series, the Miracle will play 3 in Charlotte (7-5 on the year
against them, 6 head-to-head remaining) followed by 4 more against
Jupiter. The Miracle must continue to take advantage of the worst team
in the FSL as they look to make up ground with under a month to play.

If the Miracle can hold their ground in the standings after the conclusion of those games against Charlotte and Jupiter, they will hold the opportunity to make the playoffs in their own hands.  Of the last 16 games of the season, 6 with come against Palm Beach (currently in first), and 4 against Bradenton (currently just one game back). But, the Miracle have not played well against these two teams in 2010.  They are 4-12 against Bradenton, and 2-10 against Palm Beach.  They will also play St. Lucie 6 times (4-8 against).  That’s a ******** 10-30 against those three teams this year.  Even with this horrible record against these teams, and the fact that the Miracle currently sit 19 games under .500 (47-66), they can still make the playoffs by winning a large chunk of these games.

Two key things have to happen in those match ups. 

1) Against Bradenton, they’ve got to play well on Saturday August 21st, a home doubleheader against the Marauders.  Fort Myers is currently 2-12 in double headers this season.  If they can somehow sweep their first double header that night, they would take a lot of momentum into the season’s final stretch.

2)  Take care of business late in games against Palm Beach.  The Cardinals have won 6 of their 10 contests against the Miracle in the 9th inning or later.  Fort Myers will need the bullpen to forget about what has happened this season and pitch light’s out at the end of those ball games.

With all that said, regardless of who the Miracle are playing against, they are
going to have to help out the pitching staff and score runs. This will
be the key to whether or not the Miracle can make a run. In the 5 games
to open up August, the Miracle scored 5 runs. They were 0-5 in those
games.  The goal is simply to try and score 4 runs per game…when they do that, they are 30-18.