Sandy Alcantara has worst start of season. Miami Marlins swept by Los Angeles Dodgers

Arguably the best pitcher in baseball this season was no match for arguably the best lineup in baseball this season.

Miami Marlins ace Sandy Alcantara, who entered the weekend as a top contender for the National League Cy Young Award, had his worst outing of the season in a 10-3 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers on Sunday at Dodger Stadium. The Marlins (52-69) were swept in the three-game set against the Dodgers (84-36), also losing 2-1 on Friday and 7-0 on Saturday.

Alcantara’s final line: Six earned runs on 10 hits, including one home run, and one walk with five strikeouts over just 3 2/3 innings.

“They beat me,” Alcantara said. “I don’t know what happened. I have to watch some video.”

It was Alcantara’s shortest outing of the year, one inning shorter than his 4 2/3 inning start against the San Diego Padres on May 6. It was also the most runs and hits Alcantara has allowed in a game this season. He had previously allowed five earned runs once this season (May 1 against the Seattle Mariners) and hadn’t given up more than eight hits (July 29 against the New York Mets and Aug. 10 against the Philadelphia Phillies).

Alcantara gave up at least one run in each inning he was on the mound.

In a 27-pitch first inning, Will Smith’s RBI single to center field scored Mookie Betts, who led off the inning with a single and stole second. In the second, Cody Bellinger hit a two-run home run to right-center field after Joey Gallo hit a triple to right field. Alcantara then gave up singles to three of the first four hitters he faced in the third, with Max Muncy ambushing a first-pitch changeup to score Trea Turner. And in the fourth, Betts hit a single through the left side to score Gallo and Smith hit a ground-rule double to right field to score Betts and end Alcantara’s outing after 89 pitches.

All five run-scoring hits were in or around the heart of the strike zone. Seven of the 10 hits overall came on either Alcantara’s sinker or four-seam fastball.

“They’re aggressive, especially when you throw hard and you throw strikes” Alcantara said of the Dodgers, who swung at 23 of his fastballs and made contact on 20 of them (10 foul balls, 10 balls in play). “They adjusted against me because I throw hard and throw a lot of strikes.”

Added Marlins manager Don Mattingly: “Their lineup’s the biggest trouble. They’re gonna make you work. When they get out, you have to fight for that out and then it just keeps coming. They were really on the fastball today. They had really great swings at that all day long.”

The performance pushed Alcantara’s ERA for the season to 2.19, the highest it has been after a start since May 16. He now ranks fourth in the majors in that category and second in the National League behind the Dodgers’ Tony Gonsolin, who has a 2.12 ERA but has pitched 53 1/3 fewer innings than Alcantara (176 2/3 innings for Alcantara compared to 123 1/3 for Gonsolin).

Alcantara won’t have to wait long to attempt to get redemption. His next scheduled start on Saturday is against the Dodgers at loanDepot park.

▪ The Marlins scored their only runs Sunday on a Lewin Diaz two-run home run in the fourth inning and a JJ Bleday solo home run in the eighth. Miami left six runners on base and went just 1 for 6 with runners in scoring position, with the hit being a Brian Anderson two-out single to left field in the first inning with Joey Wendle being thrown out at home trying to score from second base.

Miami has now scored four runs or fewer in 22 consecutive games, which is tied for the 14th-longest streak in MLB history and is the first stretch of at least that long since 1971 (24 games with four runs or fewer by the Philadelphia Phillies and 25 games by the Milwaukee Brewers). The MLB record is 26 games, done four times and most recently by the California Angels in 1969.

▪ In runs the Dodgers scored that didn’t come against Sandy Alcantara: Max Muncy hit a solo home run in the seventh inning against reliever Huascar Brazoban and Los Angeles tacked on three more runs on three hits and two walks in the eighth inning against Brazoban and Andrew Nardi as well as a throwing error by Anderson.

▪ Mattingly on the series overall: “It’s really not that much fun when you get beat down. I think it felt like the Mets series when they kind of dominated us at home [a three-game sweep from July 29-July 31]. These guys dominated us today. It’s not something that you want your guys to go through. You’d like to be more competitive than that, but it tells you where you’re at.”

Up next

The Marlins close out their final West Coast trip of the season with a three-game series against the Oakland Athletics.

The projected starting pitching matchups are as follows: Edward Cabrera (3-1, 1.78) and Adam Oller (2-5, 6.63) on Monday, Pablo Lopez (7-8, 3.83) and Zach Logue (3-7, 6.35) on Tuesday, and Jesus Luzardo (3-5, 3.44) and Cole Irvin (6-11, 3.33) on Wednesday.

This story was originally published August 21, 2022 at 7:29 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.