One day after holding back decision, Don Mattingly names Marlins’ Opening Day starter
And now it’s official.
Miami Marlins manager Don Mattingly has named his Opening Day starter.
Taking the mound on April 1 against the Tampa Bay Rays to begin Miami’s 2021 season and quest for consecutive playoff appearances: Sandy Alcantara.
Mattingly told Alcantara of the decision following Alcantara’s latest spring training start against the New York Mets on Wednesday in which he threw five shutout innings and struck out nine batters. Tyler Glasnow will start on the mound for the Rays.
Mattingly was hesitant to make the announcement pregame Wednesday, saying only that they have “guys lined up, and we think we know, but you guys have known that I usually don’t let you know before we talk to that person, and then we have to make sure the whole group upstairs is onboard with what we’re thinking and then we go from there.”
Between then and now, the needed conversations took place.
“It was more like ‘Hey, Sandy, we’re gonna let everyone know,’” Mattingly said. “I think Sandy in his own mind thought he was going to be the guy. I think you guys probably thought the same. We’ve kind of thought the same, but we wanted to let it play out and make sure there wasn’t anything going on. It just kind of got to that point where there’s no reason to hold any kind of news like that and that we kind of made that decision.”
The announcement feels more like a formality than anything. Alcantara has been the leader of the Marlins’ rotation. And outside of Gio Gonzalez, who signed a minor-league deal with the club on March 3, Alcantara is the most seasoned starting pitcher Miami has at its disposal.
It seemed only natural he would get the Opening Day bid for a second consecutive season.
Alcantara would become the ninth pitcher in franchise history to start on Opening Day in back-to-back seasons joining Charlie Hough, Kevin Brown, Alex Fernandez, Ryan Dempster, Josh Beckett, Dontrelle Willis, Josh Johnson and Jose Urena. Beckett and Johnson share the team record with three consecutive Opening Day starts.
The 25-year-old righty from the Dominican Republic with a five-pitch mix highlighted by a sinker and four-seam fastball that both touch the upper 90s has made 45 career starts since joining the Marlins before the 2018 season as part of the Marcell Ozuna trade with the St. Louis Cardinals.
Alcantara has a 3.69 ERA over 273 1/3 innings in that span to go along with 220 strikeouts against 119 walks.
But Marlins pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre Jr. knows there’s more to get out of Alcantara. He’s having the ace throw more sinkers — Alcantara threw the pitch nearly 35 percent of the time last year compared to 27.6 percent in 2019.
“I know when I first laid my eyes on him, I made the bold statement of talking about the guy’s stuff,” Stottlemyre said, “but we’re getting to a point where it becomes usable.”
Alcantara on a personal level has also made a more concerted effort to be aggressive in the strike zone and get ahead in counts.
“He wants to know the next day what his first-pitch strikes were,” Stottlemyre said. “That’s something that he’s focused on, and getting guys into swing mode, so that they can swing at his other stuff, not paint himself into bad corners and always working deep counts trying to get back into a count.”
Staying on track
Mattingly also said Thursday that Sixto Sanchez will make his next scheduled start on Saturday against the Nationals in West Palm Beach. Sanchez made his spring debut on Monday, throwing 1 2/3 scoreless innings against the Astros. Sanchez touched 100 mph with his fastball and threw 30 pitches.
Sanchez was delayed in arriving to camp by a visa issue and then a false positive on a COVID-19 test.
“I don’t feel frustrated, but it was a weird feeling,” Sanchez said on Monday. “That false positive spoiled my momentum, but I’m not that far behind. I just can’t pitch as many innings as the other guys.”
Stock rising
MLB Pipeline released its new top 30 prospects list for the Marlins on Thursday and ranked Miami fourth overall among MLB farm systems. Their top five prospects – Sixto Sanchez, JJ Bleday, Max Meyer, Jazz Chisholm and Edward Cabrera in that order – are ranked among the outlet’s top 100 prospects.
With the exception of Meyer and Jose Devers (No. 10), eight of the top 10 have either made their major league debuts and are expected to see more action in 2021 or make their big-league debuts at some point this season.
Perhaps the biggest surprise among the list is the sharp rise of outfielder Victor Mesa Jr., who jumped from No. 21 last year to No. 13 this year. Mesa Jr. has shown a smooth swing and increased power while showing above average arm strength and good defense at all three outfield positions.
Baseball America also listed Meyer and righthander Kyle Nicolas among their prospects who could touch 100 mph this coming season. Meyer’s slider is rated best in the system and his fastball averages 95-98 mph. Nicolas has already touched 100 in the past and has a plus-fastball that sits around 96 mph.
This and that
▪ Pablo Lopez threw 4 2/3 innings, allowing three earned runs on six hits in Thursday’s spring training game against the St. Louis Cardinals. Lopez threw 71 pitches overall and gave up a two-run home run to Paul DeJong. He struck out three and did not issue a walk.
“We’re working ahead a lot and tried to work on some things and the times I didn’t execute I got hurt a lot,” Lopez said. “Overall I think we were landing a lot of offspeed for strikes and same with the breaking ball.”
▪ Adam Duvall went 2 for 3 with a home run, a triple and three RBI. All five of Duvall’s hits so far in his first spring training with the Marlins have been extra base hits.
▪ Relief pitcher Zach Pop, one of two players in Marlins camp with Rule 5 restrictions, worked around a pair of singles for a scoreless sixth inning. Pop’s first two outs were the most notable: Working back from a 3-1 count to get DeJong to fly out to right and getting Yadier Molina to ground out to Miguel Rojas at shortstop on four pitches. He stranded Justin Williams and Austin Dean by getting Lane Thomas to line out to Isan Diaz.
This story was originally published March 18, 2021 at 2:25 PM.
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