MIAMI -- When all is said and done, Marlins ace Sandy Alcantara will go down as one of the best pitchers in franchise history.
His numbers speak to his longevity and production. They also signify his evolution from a top prospect with concerns about his command to the 2022 National League Cy Young Award winner -- the first for a Marlin.
Alcantara made a bit of history on Monday night, surpassing Josh Johnson for the second-most strikeouts by a Marlin in a 5-2 loss to the Phillies at loanDepot park.
“It's great,” Alcantara said. “Like I said, [to] have my name on that list made me feel more happy, you know? But I don't want to be the second. I would love to be the number one, but let's see what happens. So I've just got to keep doing my best every fifth day, and try to give the opportunity to the team to win the games.”
The 29-year-old Alcantara allowed a pair of solo home runs over five innings, striking out five and walking one in a 100-pitch outing. He surrendered a homer to Trea Turner on the second pitch of the game, and later a one-out long ball to Max Kepler in the fourth.
It was Alcantara’s fifth-inning strikeout of Turner that gave him 833 in a Marlins uniform, moving him past Johnson, and behind Ricky Nolasco at the top of the leaderboard (1,001). Alcantara added a K of Alec Bohm to end his start.
“I think his velocity's up a little bit,” Phillies manager Rob Thomson said. “He had a good velocity early in the year, but it was more command, control. His stuff was pretty good tonight, he's coming. It takes a while for guys who had Tommy John, it does. And he's coming. He's a great pitcher.”
Thomson isn’t just throwing those compliments around. Over his last three starts, Alcantara has a 2.12 ERA after opening the season with an 8.47 ERA -- highest among Major Leaguers with at least 50 innings. Though the series opener snapped his stretch of consecutive quality starts at two, he continues to trend up.
“First off, congrats to Sandy, now second all-time in franchise history with the strikeouts,” Marlins manager Clayton McCullough said. “That's a good moment for him. … I think it was another really solid start from Sandy, as far as the stuff. I think the execution continues to get better. So we'll just continue to build off of another solid outing, and move on to the next one.”
Here is where Alcantara ranks in some noteworthy strikeout categories in franchise history:
- Single season: 207 (fourth most, 2022) and 201 (eighth, ‘21)
- Single game: 14 (second, May 28, 2022 and Sept. 8, 2021)
- Double digits: 13 (second)
Entering Monday, here is where Alcantara stood in other pitching statistics in club history:
- bWAR: 19.5 (second behind Johnson’s 25.8)
- ERA: 3.56 (third behind Johnson’s 3.15 and Josh Beckett’s 3.46)
- WHIP: 1.173 (first)
- H/9: 7.753 (second behind A.J. Burnett’s 7.580)
- BB/9: 2.807 (third behind Nolasco’s 2.093 and Pablo López’s 2.506)
- Innings: 960 1/3 (third behind Nolasco’s 1,225 2/3 and Dontrelle Willis’ 1,022 2/3)
- Starts: 152 (third behind Nolasco’s 197 and Willis’ 162)
- Complete games: 12 (third behind Willis’ 15 and Burnett’s 14)
- ERA+: 121 (second behind Johnson’s 133)
“Great opportunity for me,” Alcantara said of the December 2017 trade that sent him to Miami from St. Louis for Marcell Ozuna. “I'm feeling very grateful and thankful to this organization for the opportunity that they gave me in 2018 when I came here for the first time. Now putting my name on the second place, the most strikeout guy, it made me feel great. Nothing much than feeling grateful, like I said, and thankful to this organization. Everything I do, I do for the team. That's what I do.”