Sandy Alcantara has made the proclamation before. He wants to be the ace of the Miami Marlins’ rotation.
But what does it mean, from Alcantara’s perspective, to be an ace?
“I just want to be the best,” Alcantara said Monday. “I want to be the best, No. 1. I think I have the mentality to be the best. I just have to keep doing my thing, keep getting better and keep doing my job.”
In other words, that means pitching like he did in the first five innings against the St. Louis Cardinals on Tuesday and finding ways to better navigate through the trouble he faced in the sixth inning.
After carving through the Cardinals for five scoreless innings, and racking up a career-high-tying 10 strikeouts in the process, Alcantara gave up three runs (two earned) in the final frame he pitched en route to the Marlins’ 4-2 loss at loanDepot park.
He loaded the bases on a pair of tough-luck infield singles and a full-count walk to Nolan Arenado. Tommy Edman scored on a Jorge Alfaro passed ball. Paul Goldschmidt scored on a groundout to third base after Garrett Cooper double-clutched the ball before throwing home. Arenado scored on a Yadier Molina sacrifice fly.
Alcantara also got little support from his offense. The Marlins (1-4) went 1 for 13 with runners in scoring position and stranded 11 runners on base. They came up empty when they had the bases loaded and no outs in the third and again when Jazz Chisholm Jr. led off the eighth with a double. Their two runs came on a pair of errors from Cardinals left fielder Tyler O’Neill in the first on a Starling Marte line drive that allowed Corey Dickerson to go from first to home and a Chisholm sac fly in the fifth.
An imperfect ending to an otherwise perfect second start to the season.
Alcantara allowed just three baserunners before that sixth inning — Edman on a fielding error in the first, Arendo on a comebacker in the fourth to break up an early no-hitter attempt and Molina on a leadoff single in the fifth — and did not allow a runner past second base in those opening five frames.
Alcantara at one point struck out six consecutive batters, a feat that had only been accomplished six time in Marlins history.
He used all of his pitches and threw all of them for strikes. Both of his fastballs, the four-seam and the sinker, consistently hit 98 and 99 mph and accounted for 21 of his 32 called strikes and swings and misses.
His changeup averaged 91.7 mph and his slider averaged 90 mph.
Through two starts this season, Alcantara has a 1.50 ERA and has struck out 17 of the 48 batters he has faced over 12 innings this season (35.4 percent). He has given up six hits and walked four.
The Cardinals (3-2) added their fourth run on a Dylan Carlson solo home run in the ninth off Richard Bleier.
