Edwin Rodriguez took over as manager of the Florida Marlins earlier this season when Fredi Gonzalez got canned,…

Left-hander Andrew Miller’s assignment to the bullpen didn’t last very long.

Called up from Class AAA New Orleans on Aug. 18 to serve as a reliever, Miller will replace injured right-hander Ricky Nolasco in the rotation starting Friday when Florida opens a three-game series against the Braves.

“I’ve been the long guy out of the bullpen. I’m ready for whatever they ask me to do,” he said.

Miller, a disappointment for the Marlins over the last three years, spent most of the season at Class AA Jacksonville working to refine his mechanics.

He has allowed six runs (five earned) in 10 innings over three big-league games this year, including one start.

“I’ve certainly made progress, but by no means am I where I want to be,” he said.

Florida Marlins catcher John Baker will undergo Tommy John surgery to repair an injury to his throwing elbow that sidelined him for most of this season, meaning he might not play again until 2012. Dr. James Andrews will perform the reconstructive surgery Friday, the Marlins said. Baker has been sidelined since May 12 and had hoped to return this year, but he endured repeated setbacks in…

Well, I suppose you have to do something to liven things up when the two teams playing are a combined 32 games out of first place in their own division, with only a month left to the season. This goes double when the game is already a blowout in the sixth inning.

The Marlins and Nationals apparently decided to liven things up, ironically, by trying to kill each other.

Well, it was a little more complicated than that.

In the top of the 6th inning of a 15-5 drubbing, Nationals center fielder Nyjer Morgan evidently took umbrage at the fact that the Marlins were throwing at him, and charged the mound. What Morgan (generously listed at “six feet” tall and 175 lbs) thought he was going to do to Chris Volstad (6′8″, 230 lbs) is beyond my comprehension.

For his part, Volstad seemed singularly unimpressed as Morgan charged at him, throwing his glove down in arrogance and dodging Morgan’s only real punch, that jumping left hook he learned from watching too many action movies.

It didn’t work.

And, I would guess that among the things going through Morgan’s mind as he ran out to the mound, he probably didn’t imagine being flattened by a man named “Gaby.”

Instead, Marlins first baseman Gaby Sanchez, not much taller but about 50 pounds heavier than Morgan, clotheslined him and brought him to the ground, whereupon everyone else joined in the scrum. It took 10 or 15 minutes for the figurative dust to settle, and when it did, both Volstad and Morgan had been ejected, of course.

Additionally, Florida manager Edwin Rodriguez (presumably for complicity in, if not actually ordering the plunking) and relief pitcher Jose Veras, whose only crime as far as I can tell was that he happened to be standing next to one of the umpires when they were looking for another scapegoat, were also ejected.

During the course of the brawl, various players, coaches, and even (I think) the Nationals bullpen catcher had gotten into the mix. Nationals third base coach Pat Listach was clobbering Volstad at the bottom of the melee, and others can clearly be seen throwing hard punches on the video replay, but nobody else was ousted.

In most of the highlight reels, Morgan ends up looking like the bad guy, and with good reason:

Namely, that he makes himself look like a bad guy. I mean, not like a Hitler-type of bad guy, more the professional wrestler type of bad guy.

A guy who shoots off his mouth and tries to back his words up with action and even when he’s more or less defeated, feels the need to save face by, well, yelling more.

A guy who seemingly walks around all the time as though he’s still hitting the .351 he smacked for the Nats last year, rather than the .257 mark he’s posted this year.

The truth, however, is rarely that simple.

The problem did not start in the top of the sixth on Wednesday night. It didn’t even start Wednesday, but rather Tuesday night, in a scoreless tie in the top of the 10th inning. Running full speed, Morgan bowled over Marlins’ catcher Brett Hayes, trying to score from second base on a fielder’s choice grounder to shortstop Hanley Ramirez. The result was a separated shoulder for Hayes and probably the end of his season.

Morgan went back to touch the plate, just in case, but Hayes had held onto the ball, and he was out. Reportedly, Morgan didn’t say anything to Hayes either then or after the game, and evidently the Marlins didn’t appreciate that. I guess they think that an opposing player ought to apologize for trying to win the game any way he can, even though it was essentially a clean play that just ended badly for their guy.

What they should have taken exception to, if anything, was the slow reaction and lazy throw to home plate, which clocked only 69 miles per hour.

Ramirez has a major league shortstop’s arm, and is certainly capable of throwing a baseball at 90 mph, perhaps more. But this lobbed throw forced Hayes to catch it as Morgan came barreling towards him, giving him no time to set himself for the collision. A 90 mph throw would have given him an extra 0.2 seconds to set himself, which is longer than it sounds like, and might have helped him to stave off injury.

For that matter, if Ramirez had been paying closer attention to Morgan, he might have seen him running full steam sooner and therefore given Hayes enough time to avoid the collision all together. If the Marlins are looking to blame someone for Hayes’ injury, they need look no further than their own All-Star shortstop.

Morgan, for his part, was just playing heads-up baseball—risking injury to himself as well, it should be noted—trying to win a scoreless, extra-inning game for his team. His effort to hit the catcher hard enough to dislodge the ball is no more or less than thousands of players have done in thousands of baseball games over the last century and a half of professional baseball.

That the Marlins didn’t appreciate the outcome—and they did eventually win the game, after all—is their problem.

But they didn’t see it that way. With the score 14-3 Marlins, with one out in the top of the fourth inning the next night, Morgan came to bat, and the Fish saw their opportunity. Volstad hit him with a 92 mph fastball and then stared Morgan down, waiting for a reaction. Nyjer didn’t give him the satisfaction though, turning away from the pitcher, briefly rubbing his highly-padded elbow and scampering down to first base.

But the Marlins made a bad gamble, doing for Morgan the one thing he’s largely been unable to do for himself this year: they put him on base. While Morgan is not a terribly effective base stealer, on a pace to lead the NL in times caught for the second time in his career, he also had 30 successful steals so far this year, so he’s nothing if not fast.

Plus, he’s got a chip on his shoulder and a reason to show them up now, so he stole second base, and then stole third three pitches later. That gave him all the opportunity he needed to score a run when the Marlins’ second baseman Donnie Murphy stumbled and sustained an injury catching a pop-up. They really showed him, huh?

So the Marlins, feeling that the “lesson” had not yet sunk into Morgan’s head, decided to try to sink a baseball into it instead. But Volstad missed this time, throwing behind him and eliciting the Crouching Tiger/Hidden Dragon response you’ve probably already seen a dozen times on SportsCenter.

Obviously warnings were given to both benches after the fracas, so when Gaby Sanchez got plunked an inning later both pitcher Doug Slaten and manager Jim Riggleman were ejected. Everyone else was allowed to finish their regularly scheduled program, in the form of a 16-10 trouncing that was frankly an embarrassment for both franchises.

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Over the past two weeks, Washington Nationals outfielder Nyjer Morgan has transformed into an updated version of…

T he Florida Marlins are extremely unlikely to make the postseason this year so there isn't much incentive…

Baserunner/catcher home plate collisions are back in the news after Nyjer Morgan instigated two such collisions that ended up costing his team runs and generated controversy.

The first happened in last Saturday’s game between the Cardinals and the Nats.  Willie Harris hit a bases-loaded double with Morgan on first base.  Morgan came flying around the bases, and St. Louis catcher Bryan Anderson initially set up to block the plate.

However, Cardinals’ first baseman Albert Pujols cut off the throw from right field and held up on throwing to the plate where he seemingly had no play on Morgan.  When Pujols held the ball, Anderson stepped out of the base line toward first base. 

Instead of simply scoring the run, Morgan stepped out of the base path into fair territory, threw an elbow into Anderson and in the process completely missed stepping on home plate.

– READ: Most Pathetic Fight Attempts in Sports –

Another National in the on-deck area grabbed Morgan and pushed him back so Morgan would return and touch home.  Morgan was called out on the basis of interference because another National touched him before the run had scored.

This was obviously a stupid play by Morgan, and one can easily see why even Nationals’ manager Jim Riggleman criticized Morgan afterward. 

You don’t give up a run so you can go out of your way (and the base path) to hit a fielder who doesn’t even have the ball.

In yesterday’s game between the Marlins and the Nationals, Morgan was involved in another collision, and again it cost the Nationals a run.

Morgan’s decision to hit Marlins’ rookie catcher Brett Hayes and try to knock the ball loose was a stupid play, because Morgan probably would have scored if he had slid into home plate.

In my mind, however, it was not a dirty play like Morgan’s elbow to Bryan Anderson on Saturday. The Marlins and Nats were tied 0-0 in the 10th inning when Morgan tried to score on an infield grounder.

It was going to be a close play at the plate.  Hayes caught the ball on the third base side of the plate, and (the slow motion replay shows) just had time to set himself before Morgan barreled into him.  Hayes injured his shoulder on the play, but he held onto the ball and made the out.

A base runner absolutely has the right in those circumstances to run into the catcher, who is standing in the base path, to try to knock the ball loose if the runner thinks it gives him the best chance to score. 

The game was on the line, and the professional game is about winning first, second and last. Base runners are paid to score runs, pure and simple.

It is a split second decision, and in hindsight you can say that Morgan made the wrong decision in terms of scoring the run.  It’s also a shame Hayes was hurt on the play. 

However, hard, clean plays like that are part of the game, unless you advocate changing the rules to provide that catchers can never be in the base paths even when they have the ball in their hands.

I think catchers should be barred from setting up in the base path before they have received the throw from another fielder, not that catchers shouldn’t be able to move into the base path once the ball is actually in their hands.

Interestingly, no one on the Nationals had anything negative to say about Morgan’s collision with Hayes.

As I’m sure you know, there was a bench-clearing brawl in today’s Marlins-Nationals game.  Chris Volstad threw one behind Morgan’s back, and Morgan charged the mound.

However, there was more to today’s brawl than the Marlins trying to get back solely because of the Morgan-Hayes collision. 

Morgan had stolen a couple of bases in the game even though the Nationals were down by 10 runs (I can kind of see why it’s considered bad form to steal bases when your team is up by 10, but I don’t think it makes any sense to consider it unsportsmanlike to steal bases when your team is losing big—if anything, the base stealer is doing the team with the big lead a favor, since the cost of getting caught stealing is much greater than the value of a stolen base when the stealer’s team is that far behind).

However, some ballplayers are offended by base-stealing anytime the game is a blowout one way or the other.

I’m also certain that the Marlins knew all about the Morgan-Anderson collision, which put the Morgan-Hayes collision in a different light. 

A lot of baseball people watch SportsCenter or go to MLB.com, because they want to know what their competitors are doing.  It’s their livelihood, after all.

Finally, the brawl happened because Morgan decided to charge the mound even though he hadn’t actually been hit with the pitch.

The totality of the past week’s events don’t cast Morgan in a very favorable light, and I think you can be fairly certain that Tony La Russa and the Cardinals won’t forget the Morgan-Anderson collision between now and the next time the Cardinals and Marlins play each other.

However, the Marlins have probably gotten Morgan out of their system, particularly after the big shot first baseman Gaby Sanchez gave Morgan after Morgan threw a punch at Volstad during today’s brawl.

Read more Florida Marlins news on BleacherReport.com

Florida Marlins pitcher Ricky Nolasco is done for the season with a tear in his right knee and catcher Brett Hayes is out indefinitely with a separated left shoulder. Nolasco (14-9, 4.51) was evaluated after experiencing some discomfort. He said he will undergo surgery next week. "It's just not letting me do what I want to do," he said Wednesday.

MIAMI – Nyjer Morgan once again found himself in the middle of trouble.

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The Nationals Nyjer Morgan stormed the mound and threw a punch at Marlins pitcher Chris Voldstad Wednesday evening after getting intentionally thrown at.

Marlins first baseman Gaby Sanchez closed in fast and completely decked Morgan with a clothesline/right-hook hybrid. 

Benches emptied and a brawl ensued.

Remember, Morgan rammed into Marlins catcher Brett Hayes last night, so revenge was apparently on the pitcher’s mind this evening. Hayes is out indefinitely with a separated shoulder.

It’s good to know the Marlins have found themselves an unlikely enforcer in Sanchez, the official muscle behind the mound.

Oh and the Marlins were up 16 – 10 in the top of the 8th.

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