Sandy Alcantara, with a ‘nasty’ slider and run support, dominant again as Marlins beat Reds

From the time he stepped out of the bullpen and made his way to the mound, Sandy Alcantara knew his slider was going to be, in his words, “nasty.”

“I’ve been working so hard on my slider,” Alcantara said, “and I’m seeing the results.”

The results certainly showed up on Saturday, as Alcantara used that pitch to record seven of his career-high 12 strikeouts in the Miami Marlins’ 6-1 win over the Cincinnati Reds at loanDepot park, their third win in the past four games.

Alcantara, the Marlins’ 25-year-old ace, was dominant all night. He got through seven innings on 98 pitches, scattering six hits and walking one. The only trouble he ran into came in the third inning when he gave up three hits — including an RBI double to Tyler Naquin — and a walk but got out of a bases-loaded jam by striking out Asdrubal Cabrera. After giving up back-to-back one-out singles in the fourth, Alcantara retired the final 11 batters he faced.

On the season, Alcantara has a 3.27 ERA and has thrown 165 1/3 innings — the fourth-most in baseball behind Zach Wheeler (176 2/3), Adam Wainwright (169 2/3) and Walker Buehler (169).

Alcantara has gone at least seven innings while giving up two runs or fewer in 11 of his 27 starts including five of his six starts in August.

Even with that rough outing against the Colorado Rockies on Aug. 6 — a career-worst 10 earned runs in 3 2/3 innings — Alcantara still posted a 3.18 ERA this month.

Remove that start, and Alcantara’s ERA is 1.00 in the other five outings, giving up just four earned runs over 36 innings.

“This guy is a beast,” Marlins manager Don Mattingly said. “This is 6, 7, 8 innings just about every time now, and I know he’s had a couple of hiccups during the course of the year, but this dude’s an animal. I mean this is a horse, and it’s gonna keep getting better and better.”

Alcantara’s evolution this year — and in particular this past month — is an increase in strikeouts. He had three double-digit strikeout performances in August and four total this season.

Alcantara entered Saturday with a career whiff rate of 25 percent and a 26.1 percent mark for the 2021 season. On Saturday, the Reds (71-60) swung and missed on 29 of their 61 swings against him — a 47.5-percent clip. That included 17 whiffs on 24 swings against the slider.

“His stuff was good all day,” Mattingly said.

And Alcantara’s latest strong outing came with the Marlins hosting Dominican Heritage Night at loanDepot park. Alcantara was born in Azua, about an hour and a half west from Santo Domingo.

He started playing baseball when he was 8 years old. He pitched and played right field as a youngster and, like many aspiring players from the island, idolized Pedro Martinez. He has 10 siblings. At age 11, he moved in with an older sister Aridia in Santo Domingo so that he could both play baseball and attend school. He dropped out of school in eighth grade to focus solely on baseball, “this beautiful game that I love,” as he calls it.

Alcantara felt the support from the stands on Saturday.

“They came here with a lot of energy,” Alcantara said. “They enjoyed the game.”

And unlike Sunday, when Alcantara held the Reds to two runs over seven innings but wound up with the loss, the Marlins offense gave him more than enough run support.

The Marlins loaded the bases in the first inning with back-to-back singles from Miguel Rojas and Jazz Chisholm Jr. and a catcher’s interference call that allowed Jesus Aguilar to get to first base. Jorge Alfaro poked a ball into right field for a two-run single.

Jesus Sanchez, a fellow Dominican born in Higuey, followed two at-bats later with a towering 443-foot home run to center field to gave Alcantara a 5-0 advantage early as Miami (54-76) sent 10 batters to the plate in the first inning. Sanchez has hits in six of his last nine starts, with five of his seven hits in that span going for extra bases (three doubles, two home runs).

“It’s a matter of just keep working,” Sanchez said. “I keep working hard every day. I think I’ve been doing a good job, but I’ve been working mostly on my confidence. It’s something that I continue to work all the time and I hope to continue having it.”

Alfaro’s RBI double in the sixth closed scoring. Chisholm recorded a career-high three hits and scored on both of Alfaro’s hits.

It was the first time since Sept. 30, 2017, that the Marlins scored five runs in the first inning of a game. It was also just the eighth time Miami scored at least six runs in an Alcantara start this season.

“When they score runs for me,” Alcantara said, “I feel happy. I can be more aggressive with the game. I’m always aggressive, but when I get runs, I just lock in.”

The Marlins have held heritage celebration nights throughout the season to honor various nationalities. They have included Cuban, Bahamian, Venezuelan, Colombian, Jewish, Italian, Puerto Rican and, on Saturday, Dominican heritage. Three more heritage celebration nights remain this season: Japanese on Sunday, Nicaraguan on Sept. 4 and Mexican on Oct. 2.

“We think it’s important to be diverse and inclusive and talk about how we honor other heritages,” Mike Shaw, the Marlins’ vice president of experience and innovation, told the Miami Herald in May. “We’re highlighting the diversity across South Florida, the Latin community. There’s so many different heritages in the Caribbean we want to highlight.”

The Marlins have five players on their active roster from the Dominican Republic. In addition to Alcantara and Sanchez, pitcher Edward Cabrera (Santiago), outfielder Bryan De La Cruz (Santo Domingo) and outfielder Magneuris Sierra (San Cristobal) hail from the island. De La Cruz had two hits on Saturday, bumping his batting average to .355 on the season since making his MLB debut on July 30.

Five more players on the Marlins’ 40-man roster — pitchers Sixto Sanchez (San Cristobal) and Jorge Guzman (Las Matas de Santa Cruz), infielders Jose Devers (Samana) and Lewin Diaz (Santiago), and outfielder prospect Jerar Encarnacion (Bayaguana) — are from the Dominican Republic.

This story was originally published August 28, 2021 at 9:12 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.