Two outs from shutout, Marlins pull Sandy Alcantara. They lost in extra innings
Clayton McCullough had his mind made up as he made the slow walk to the pitcher’s mound in the ninth inning Tuesday. His ace, Sandy Alcantara, was two outs away from a shutout — what could have been his second in as many starts if he had finished the job — but had put the potential tying runs on base.
At 95 pitches, McCullough thought Alcantara had done enough. So the Miami Marlins manager took the ball from his ace, hoping his bullpen could get the final two outs against the Cincinnati Reds.
Everything unraveled from there.
The Reds scored twice on Anthony Bender in the ninth — first on a Sal Stewart sacrifice fly and then on a wild pitch on the first pitch to Spencer Steer — to tie the game and force extra innings. Cincinnati then put up a four-spot on Calvin Faucher and John King to take the lead for good in an eventual 6-3 win at loanDepot park.
“I made that decision,” McCullough said, “and it did not work out, obviously.”
As for Alcantara’s perspective on how the situation unfolded?
“I’m just a player,” said Alcantara, who set the Marlins record with 24 1/3 innings to open the season without giving up an earned run before the two he left on the bases for Bender in the ninth scored. “I understand there’s a decision and you cannot control it. It just happened. It just happened. So I’ll be with my teammates and my coaches, but I think next time, they have to make sure to ask me before taking me out of the game.”
McCullough had already signaled to the bullpen before heading out to relieve Alcantara, who had given up a softly hit double to Matt McLain and walked Elly De La Cruz in the ninth to end his outing.
“I had made that [decision] when he got [runners on] first and second,” McCullough said. “Anthony was ready.”
Hindsight is 20/20, but this is a game that could leave McCullough playing the “What if?” game.
What if he left Alcantara in to try to get the final two outs instead of turning to his bullpen, which struggled to throw strikes?
Who knows exactly how the game would have unfolded.
What is known, and what McCullough also said, was that Alcantara had “probably the best combination of stuff and execution” that the manager had seen from his ace.
Alcantara, who tossed a 93-pitch shutout his last time out against the White Sox, was perfect through four innings on Tuesday. He needed just 32 pitches to get his first 12 outs. His offense then gave him what seemed like would be all the run support he needed with Otto Lopez and Heriberto Hernandez RBI groundouts respectively scoring Agustin Ramirez and Jakob Marsee to give the Marlins (6-5) a 2-0 lead.
“Everything feels good,” Alcantara said.
Cincinnati (8-3) then got its leadoff hitter on base in each of the next three innings on a Stewart groundball single up the middle in the fifth, a Noelvi Marte infield single to third base in the sixth and a De La Cruz walk in the seventh. Alcantara eliminated the threat each time.
An 11-pitch eighth inning put Alcantara at 83 pitches going into the ninth.
He got TJ Friedl to fly out to left before surrendering a double to Matt McLain — the first extra-base hit he has allowed on the young season. A second walk to De La Cruz ended Alcantara’s night at 95 pitches.
Instead of letting Alcantara try to finish things on his own, McCullough went to the bullpen, citing the fact that he was facing the Reds lineup for a fourth time and that he was confident Bender could seal things.
“I know he felt like he had plenty left to go finish that game out,” McCullough said. “Didn’t give him that opportunity.”
The collapse followed.
Stewart lofted a Bender sweeper that clipped the bottom of the strike zone to right field for a sacrifice fly to cut Cincinnati’s deficit to 2-1.
After issuing a walk to Eugenio Suarez, Bender spiked a first-pitch slider to Steer that allowed De La Cruz to score on a wild pitch.
Cincinnati then scored four more in the 10th on a Nathaniel Lowe RBI single, McLain two-run double and De La Cruz RBI groundout.
“It hurts,” McCullough said. “It does.”
Will the decision weigh on McCullough, especially considering the result of the game?
“I think there’s a lot of decisions that go throughout the course of the game and through the course of the season that do weigh on you,” McCullough said. “For this one to turn and not end up in our favor certainly doesn’t feel great. To come here and answer that is certainly part of it, and I don’t feel great about how it finished for us. ... Losing the game is, for me, what stings the most.”
And for Alcantara?
“Just gotta get ready for my next outing,” he said. “Get back tomorrow and fight the same way we did today.”
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