Offense backs Alcantara’s complete game as Marlins split series with Rays. Takeaways from the win
After a season filled primarily with struggles from their ace, the Miami Marlins got vintage Sandy Alcantara on Wednesday.
Alcantara needed just 97 pitches to toss a complete game in the Marlins’ 7-1 win over the Tampa Bay Rays on Wednesday to split the two-game series at Tropicana Field to improve to 55-48 on the season.
“What do you want me to say?” Alcantara said. “That was great.”
It was Alcantara’s second complete game of the season and the 11th of his MLB career, tied with Kevin Brown and Livan Hernandez for the third most in Marlins history. Alcantara’s first complete game of 2023 came on April 4 against the Minnesota Twins in his second start of the season.
In the 18 starts between the complete games, though, Alcantara had pitched to a 5.08 ERA (63 earned runs over 111 2/3 innings). He gave up at least four earned runs in half of those 18 starts.
But on Wednesday, Alcantara pitched like the guy who was the unanimous National League Cy Young Award winner just a year ago. He held the Rays (62-43) to just five hits and a walk while striking out seven and eliminated two of the six baserunners he allowed on double plays.
The only run Alcantara gave up came on a Jose Siri single in the third inning that scored Josh Lowe, who led off the inning with a double (on a ball that skipped past a sliding Bryan De La Cruz) and got to third on a wild pitch.
He also got plenty of support from his offense. The Marlins’ seven runs scored — two in the second, three in the fourth, and one apiece in the fifth and sixth — are the most they have had in a game on this side of the All-Star Break.
Five players — Luis Arraez, Garrett Hampson (who entered in the second inning after Jesus Sanchez exited with neck tightness), Yuli Gurriel, Jon Berti and Jacob Stallings — all logged multiple hits. Stallings and Arraez both drove in multiple runs. Gurriel scored twice. Berti, who extended his hitting streak to eight games, scored all three times he was on base. De La Cruz added a solo home run as well.
Here are three takeaways from the game.
What made Sandy Alcantara so effective against the Rays?
Wednesday marked the second time in Alcantara’s career that he threw a complete game on fewer than 100 pitches. The other came on May 19, 2019, against the New York Mets — the first complete game of his MLB career when he needed just 89 pitches to log 27 outs.
Alcantara kept his pitch count down by getting the Rays to swing early in counts. Of the 32 batters he faced, only five had plate appearances that were longer than four pitches. Twenty-two of those 32 plate appearances were no longer than three pitches. Five of his seven strikeouts were on three pitches.
Alcantara went heavy with his secondary pitches on Wednesday, throwing more sliders and changeups than four-seam fastballs and sinkers to great success. Rays hitters whiffed on 11 of 32 swings against the sliders and changeups compared to eight whiffs on 31 swings against fastballs.
“He just did a great job of executing,” Stallings said. “I didn’t even realize how efficient he was being.”
That efficiency?
He threw 10 pitches or fewer in five of his nine innings and threw no more than 16 pitches in any inning.
Alcantara was at 43 pitches after five innings, 58 pitches after six innings and 84 pitches going into the ninth.
“They’re a really aggressive team,” Marlins manager Skip Schumaker said. “We knew that going into the game and he took advantage of it.”
More milestones for Luis Arraez
Luis Arraez hit a pair of milestones with one swing as part of the Marlins’ offensive outburst on Wednesday.
His ground-rule double that capped Miami’s three-run fourth inning was both the 100th double of his MLB career and his 50th RBI of the season, the latter of which is a new career high (he had 49 RBI in 2022).
Arraez finished the game 2 for 4 with two RBI and a walk. Wednesday was Arraez’s 40th multi-hit game of the season, the second-most in MLB behind the Atlanta Braves’ Ronald Acuna Jr. (41 multi-hit games entering Wednesday).
One final series before the trade deadline
After an off day on Thursday, the Marlins host the Detroit Tigers this weekend at loanDepot park in their final full series before MLB’s trade deadline, which is at 6 p.m. Tuesday.
Despite the slow start following the All-Star Break, winning just two of 11 games, the Marlins are in the thick of the National League wild card race and are poised to be buyers. Adding an impact bat to the lineup is the top priority, and Miami has been linked to two of the top hitters expected to be available in the Chicago Cubs’ Cody Bellinger and the Washington Nationals’ Jeimer Candelario.
From there, beefing up the bullpen is the next priority and generally a focal point of all contenders at the deadline. Miami specifically would be in need of right-handed relievers who can handle high-leverage situations.
This story was originally published July 26, 2023 at 2:24 PM.
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