deGrom outduels Marlins’ Alcantara, who gives up back-to-back homers in loss to Mets

For five innings, Miami Marlins starter Sandy Alcantara matched reigning NL Cy Young Award winner Jacob deGrom, giving up just one run and looking generally efficient on the mound.

The sixth inning proved to be too much for Alcantara.

The New York Mets tagged the Marlins’ starter for three runs on four hits — including back-to-back home runs by Pete Alonso and Michael Conforto — to clinch the series at Citi Field with a 4-1 win on Saturday. The Marlins (10-29) have now dropped five consecutive games and 12 of their last 14. They have given up 12 home runs over the current road trip, which ends Sunday with a 1:10 p.m. game against the Mets.

“You miss your spots, and you’re going to end up paying,” Marlins manager Don Mattingly said.

Before that sixth inning, though, Alcantara playing a big part in keeping the Marlins in the game. The 23-year-old righty started the game with three scoreless innings and opened scoring for the Marlins in the third with a hard-hit double to left field that scored Jon Berti.

“I was attacking,” Alcantara said. “I was aggressive. I was throwing my pitches for strikes.”

But the Mets (19-20) took control from there. They tied the game in the fourth on an RBI single from Conforto that scored Robinson Cano and then had the big sixth inning to knock Alcantara out of the game. He falls to 1-4 on the year and his ERA is now up to 5.11.

“I thought he was pretty good tonight,” Mattingly said. “It looked like his stuff was good and he just ran into trouble in that [sixth] inning. I thought he would come out of that, but it just came apart after that.”

The Marlins had just six base runners in the final six innings after Alcantara’s run-scoring double and struck out 10 times total, including eight against deGrom who gave just five hits and one walk over seven innings.

deGrom also hit an RBI single in the sixth, his second hit of the night to cap the Mets’ scoring.

This story was originally published May 11, 2019 at 9:52 PM.

Jordan McPherson

Miami Herald

305-376-2129

Jordan McPherson covers the Miami Hurricanes and Florida Panthers for the Miami Herald. He attended the University of Florida and covered the Gators athletic program for five years before joining the Herald staff in December 2017.