Sandy Alcantara dominates again in Miami Marlins win over Atlanta Braves

Sandy Alcantara’s recent run of dominance continued Saturday.

The Miami Marlins’ ace struck out a career-high-tying 14 batters while allowing just one run over eight innings en route to a 4-1 win over the Atlanta Braves at Truist Park. Miami improves to 19-25, while Atlanta falls to 22-25.

The strikeout tally matches his performance on Sept. 8, 2021 against the New York Mets.

Saturday was Alcantara’s fourth consecutive quality start, defined as pitching at least six innings and giving up no more than three earned runs, and followed up his complete-game effort against the Braves the last time he took the mound on Sunday.

Over this four-start stretch, all Marlins wins, Alcantara has a 0.84 ERA with 32 strikeouts against six walks and 15 hits allowed over 32 innings. His season ERA has dropped from 3.03 to 2.00 in that span.

Alcantara is the first pitcher since Gerrit Cole in September 2019 to pitch at least eight innings in three consecutive games. He is the first Marlins pitcher to do so since Dontrelle Willis in September 2005.

On the season, Alcantara leads all MLB pitchers in innings pitched (67 2/3) and ranks in the top 10 in ERA (sixth, 2.00) and batting average against (sixth, .197).

With an extra day of rest between his 115-pitch effort on Sunday and his start on Saturday, Marlins manager Don Mattingly said Alcantara’s pitch count wouldn’t need to be monitored.

“Sandy seems to get better as the game goes on,” Mattingly said pregame. “He’s got that delivery that just seems to put no stress on him in general. It’s like he’s playing catch out there, but we don’t want to take that for granted. We always pay attention to what he does, as we do all the guys, but Sandy is one of those guys that seems like depending on the way that he gets there late in the game, it kind of helps you with your decision on what you do.”

Alcantara rarely had rough patches to deal with on Saturday. He didn’t throw more than 16 pitches in an inning and only allowed multiple runners to reach base in an inning once. He still had life with his fastball late in the game, hitting 99.9 mph in the eighth inning.

But it was Alcantara’s offspeed and breaking pitches that did most of the damage.

Of his 108 pitches on Saturday, 29 were sliders and 28 were changeups. He also threw 27 sinkers and 24 four-seam fastballs. Braves hitters whiffed on 27 of their 60 swings, including 10 times on the changeup, nine times on the slider and eight times on the four-seam fastball.

The Marlins’ offense back up its ace, too. Miami opened scoring with a Joey Wendle sacrifice fly in the fourth, a Miguel Rojas home run in the sixth and a Garrett Cooper two-run double in the seventh.

Cole Sulser pitched the ninth inning to record his second save of the season.

Acuna hit again

With two outs and a 1-2 count in the third inning, an Alcantara sinker ran inside and hit Braves star Ronald Acuna Jr.

Acuna, who has now been hit eight times by Marlins pitchers in 64 games (including once in three postseason contests), started walking toward the mound with his head down before heading to first base, with Alcantara patting him on the backside. Acuna was checked by a trainer before staying in the game.

Acuna getting hit by Marlins pitchers is a sore spot for the Braves, dating back bating to the Aug. 15, 2018, game when Jose Urena plunked the budding superstar. Both benches cleared that day. Snitker had to be restrained as he tried to get to Urena, who is now in the Colorado Rockies organization.

He didn’t stay on the basepaths long, though. Alcantara picked him off before throwing a pitch to Dansby Swanson to end the inning.

It was Acuna’s first of two inning-ending outs on the basepaths Saturday. After hitting a single and stealing second to put runners on second and third with one out in the sixth, Acuna broke for third on a Swanson groundout to the left side after Wendle made the throw to first baseman Cooper to retire Swanson. Cooper then fired back to Rojas, who was covering third base and applied the tag to end the frame and limit the damage to just one run.

Unleash La Tortuga

Willians Astudillo started at second base on Saturday after Brian Anderson was a late scratch from the Marlins’ lineup due to lower back spasms.

Astudillo, who became a folk hero of sorts while with the Minnesota Twins and was given the nickname “La Tortuga” (Spanish for “The turtle”), was added to the Marlins’ active roster on Wednesday prior to their series finale against the Tampa Bay Rays after being a regular on the Marlins’ road-trip taxi squad so far this season.

He broke up the Braves’ early no-hit bid with a one-out groundball single through the left side that got past Swanson and second baseman Ozzie Albies and then proceeded to steal second base — his first career stolen base as a big leaguer. Astudillo added a second hit in the seventh on a single to left field.

Anderson was originally slated to start in right field for a second consecutive game in place of Avisail Garcia, who went on the injured list Friday. Instead, Bryan De La Cruz moved from center field to right field, Jon Berti moved from second base to center field and Astudillo became the new starting second baseman.