The Florida Marlins completed a sweep of the Orioles to find themselves one game out of first place in a surprisingly weak NL East. This is their third streak of at least four wins on the season. They won the first four games of the season, and after a loss, rolled off seven more to start 11-1. The team, however, matched all of those with losing streaks of seven, five and four.

The Mariners, like the Marlins are two games over .500. They’ve put together one winning streak of six games and one losing streak of six games, but overall they perform like we might expect a .500 team to perform; they win a few, they lose a few. Do we view these teams differently because of their streakiness or lack thereof? Do we think the Marlins are a better team than the Mariners because they’re capable to more long streaks?

The most likely explanation for the difference in the number of long streaks is just random luck. Plenty of combinations of wins and losses get a team to two-games over .500, and many of those contain long streaks. On the other hand, long streaks might occur if Florida was in fact a very good team, but sensitive to small perturbations, possibly due to the lack of depth. One or two key players suffering an injury or going into a slump is enough to send the whole team into a tailspin.

If the random pattern explanation is the right one, then the Marlins will stay around .500 for the season, and their winning the division will depend on the Mets and Phillies ability to recover from their injuries. If the second explanation holds, then the Marlins may be ready to take off, and a trade that adds to their depth could eliminate the downside fluctuations. I’m leaning toward the random pattern, as they’ve been outscored by 20 runs this season and own the second best record in the majors in one-run games, 14-8. (Dodgers at 16-8 are the best.) There’s been some luck involved in getting them over .500.