Despite rough results, Marlins think Alcantara is ‘on the right track.’ What’s gone wrong?
Expectations are high for Miami Marlins ace Sandy Alcantara. That’s usually the case following a Cy Young Award-winning season.
Four starts into the 2023 season, Alcantara has not lived up to those expectations — the ones building externally and his own personally.
He has a 5.84 ERA, the ninth-highest among 71 qualified pitchers through games played Sunday. He is averaging 1.18 walks and hits per inning pitched, which ranks 35th among those 71 pitchers. His .250 batting average against? Tied for 45th among those 71 pitchers.
And, a reminder, these stats include his three-hit shutout against the Minnesota Twins on April 4, a 100-pitch gem in his second start of the season.
But since that game, Alcantara has allowed a combined 14 runs (13 earned runs) on 17 hits over 10 innings in losses to the Philadelphia Phillies and Arizona Diamondbacks. It’s the most runs he has allowed over consecutive starts in his career and the second-most hits he has allowed in back to back starts (he gave up 18 total in two home starts against the Phillies and Cubs in April 2019).
Is it too early to panic? The Marlins certainly think so.
The team and the pitcher are trying to remain optimistic. It is still early in the season, after all, and Alcantara has the track record for success after pitching back-to-back 200-inning seasons and establishing himself as one of the league’s best.
“It’s better when everything happens early in the season,” Alcantara said. “I know what I have to do to get there. Just take time to think about it. Take time to improve.”
Added Marlins manager Skip Schumaker: “The expectations are from everyone. When you win the Cy Young, you expect a shutout every single time. I still feel like he’s on the right track.”
But there are a few underlying tendencies that are going against what has made Alcantara so great the past two seasons.
Among them:
▪ More line drives, less ground balls: Alcantara prides himself on getting batters to swing early in counts, inducing weak contact and having his defense behind him do the rest.
The balls in play against him have been a little bit harder to start the year, and the balls in play against him have been elevated, too.
Of the 75 balls put in play against Alcantara so far this season, 29.3 percent have been line drives (the highest of his career since joining the Marlins’ rotation full-time in 2019) and just 41.3 percent have been ground balls (the lowest of his career since joining the Marlins’ rotation full-time in 2019). Last year, only 18.9 percent of balls put in play against Alcantara were line drives whlie 54.2 percent were ground balls.
That was been exacerbated in Alcantara’s two outings last week. Of the 34 balls put in play against Alcantara by the Phillies and Diamondbacks, 15 were hard hit — defined by Statcast as having an average exit velocity of at least 95 mph.
▪ Teams are hitting his changeup: Alcantara’s changeup was one of the best individual pitches in baseball last season. Opponents hit just .175 against it. Alcantara logged 78 of his 207 strikeouts with it while not surrendering a home run with it.
So far this season, albeit in a much smaller sample size, it has been his least efficient pitch. Opponents have hit .304 against it, the highest of any of his pitches. The average exit velocity of balls in play against Alcantara’s changeup? 92.1 mph with an average launch angle of 10 degrees (meaning mostly line drives). Last year, the average exit velocity against Alcantara’s changeup was 84. 1 mph and the average launch angle was negative-5 degrees (so primarily groundballs).
▪ Hitters are making more contact in the zone: Alcanrtara has thrown just 50.1 percent of his pitches in the strike zone so far this season. Hitters have swung at 75.3 percent of those pitches — the highest rate of Alcantara’s career — and making contact on 81.3 percent of those swings. Conversely, hitters have chased on just 28.8 percent of pitches outside of the zone, far below the rates Alcantara has gotten the past two seasons (a career-high 34.7 percent in 2022 and 33.9 percent in 2021).
But then are there are the mental portions of the game that the numbers don’t always quantify.
Take the sixth inning of the Marlins’ 5-0 loss to the Diamondbacks for example. Alcantara had more or less cruised for the first five innings of the game, giving up just one run while logging eight of his nine strikeouts.
Josh Rojas led off the inning by hitting a ground ball to the right side. Garrett Cooper made a great play to field the ball and threw to Alcantara covering first base. Alcantara didn’t catch the ball and it skipped into foul territory. Rojas made it to second base on the error.
“That made me a little frustrated,” Alcantara said.
Alcantara tried to keep his composure after the play but admitted his mind was “a little bit out of control” after the error. After Geraldo Perdomo hit a sacrifice bunt the next plate appearance, Alcantara gave up three consecutive run-scoring hits: A Pavin Smith RBI single on a slider low and and inside the strike zone, a Christian Walker RBI double on a first-pitch middle-middle fastball and a two-run home run to Corbin Carroll on a first-pitch elevated sinker.
“They jumped early on me,” Alcantara said. “Too many strikes. That happens when you throw too many strikes. They take advantage.”
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