“The Palms’ Personality Problem”

 The Miami Palms boarded a plane for Atlanta this afternoon with something they haven’t carried much this year: momentum. And yet, buried somewhere beneath Edwin Encarnacion’s orbit-defying moonshots and the 18-hit parade that drowned the White Sox, there’s a little tremor in the floorboards of this team—one that deserves a closer look before this nine-game road gauntlet really starts shaking.

So today’s column isn’t about the homers (though Encarnacion’s grand slam may still be visible from space). It’s about something far more fragile: the Palms’ identity.

What Are the 2020 Palms, Actually?

Are they the free-wheeling, line-drive machine that just put up 13 runs without breaking a sweat? Or are they the team that can look listless for entire series, propped up only by the occasional Korb rope double or Holt surprise rally?

Manager Scott Hatteberg has offered half-answers all year about “letting the roster breathe,” but after 52 games, the room is getting humid.

When I asked him pregame whether the Palms were close to the team he expected to have in late May, Hatteberg laughed—laughed!—and said:

“Close? No, I don’t think we’ve even met the team we’re supposed to be yet.”

You don’t say.

The Island of Misfit Performances

Take Manny Parra. His 5.87 ERA is less a stat and more an ongoing weather event. The guy works hard, throws strikes, and gets absolutely none of the cosmic luck Encarnacion seems to bathe in nightly. He’s the kind of pitcher about whom teammates whisper things like “he’s due” and “he deserves better,” but at some point you have to stop deserving and start delivering.

Or look at Frank Sohn, the most talented .273 hitter in the league. Every ball off his bat carries the posture of a double, then plops harmlessly into an outfielder’s glove as though the baseball gods installed a trampoline under the warning track.

And yet…

And yet, this team is 28-24. Above .500. Winning series. Climbing.

They’re a puzzle missing maybe two pieces—but nobody can agree on which two.

Encarnacion’s Meteor and the Gravity Problem

There is no avoiding the power-plant humming in the DH slot. Encarnacion now sits at 11 homers and 40 RBI, and if there’s a Palms player more comfortable controlling the mood of a game, he hasn't shown himself. Thursday’s grand slam didn’t just break the game open—it created a new game entirely.

Afterward he said only:

“Good swing. Good day.”

Classic Eddie: modest like a man who’s hit only one homer in his life, not 414 in the majors and counting.

But even gravity wells collapse without structure. Can the Palms keep orbiting around Encarnacion’s bat forever? Of course not. Atlanta and Cincinnati will devour any team that shows up expecting one guy to do the heavy lifting.

Nine Games to Answer a Larger Question

This trip—four in Atlanta, three in Cincinnati, two in Toronto—will tell us more about this club than any stretch yet.

If they go 6-3? You can start whispering about Wild Card math without irony.
If they go 3-6? Then we’re back to Hatteberg talking about “letting the roster breathe,” which is code for “I need another reliever and maybe a bench bat but don’t want to say it out loud.”

But there’s a hidden benefit to this journey north and inland: the Palms might finally discover what kind of team they want to be.

A slugging monster? A scrappy contact crew? A pitching-and-defense ensemble?

Right now, they’re all of them and none of them. A shapeshifter still looking for its final form.

My Prediction?

This road trip will force them into an identity the way pressure forces coal into a diamond.

Whether that identity is polished or jagged… well, that’s what the next nine games are for.

And I’ll be right here, chronicling every glimmer and crack.

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