SAN DIEGO—”They don’t score any runs for me.” With their ace on the mound, the Marlins had the opportunity to salvage a 3-3 road trip and fly home happy on Wednesday afternoon. Padres starting pitcher Seth Lugo had other plans, as he dominated Miami for six shutout innings and San Diego beat the Marlins 4-0. Miami finished their six-game road trip 2-4.
Sandy Alcantara is in the midst of his best stretch of the 2023 season. In his last eight starts heading into Wednesday, he’s 3-3 with a 2.54 ERA in 56.2 IP. He provided the team with quality starts in six of those eight outings. While it wasn’t technically a quality start, in today’s game, Sandy did his part and held the Padres to four runs over 6.2 IP. He threw 105 pitches, 67 of them for strikes.
“He’ll tell you he’s disappointed. I’ll say he made a couple of bad pitches, but it was good. He was throwing the ball really well against a tough lineup,” said manager Skip Schumaker postgame.
Unfortunately for Sandy, his offense gave him no run support, something that’s become all too common. “It’s not Sandy—we just have not scored lately on this whole road trip except for maybe one game,” Skip added.
After giving their ace ten runs of support on Friday, Miami has combined to give their pitchers seven runs in five games since. “They didn’t score any runs for me, so next time we gotta score more runs and try and win the game.”
Sandy’s start
On Wednesday, San Diego got to Alcantara early, as Ha-Seong Kim flared a lead off double in the first and scored on a Juan Soto RBI single with the infield in. “Sandy’s on the ground a lot. So you know we go infield in most of the time, so you’re going to continue to see that as long as I’m here.”
After that, Sandy settled in nicely and kept the Padres off the scoreboard for the next four innings, but ran into trouble in the sixth and seventh.
After what he described as a frustrating walk to Manny Machado, he left a middle-middle fastball over the plate to Xander Bogaerts that was crushed for a two-run home run, his 14th on the year.
“When I walk people that I know I can strike out, it’s frustrating. Not saying i can strike out Machado, he and I have a good relationship. I just want to win the battle right there and I didn’t,” said Alcantara.
San Diego would tack on another run to make it 4-0, and that’s when Skip went out to get his pitcher. As he got back in the dugout, Sandy vented his frustration, slamming his glove on the bench multiple times.
“It’s not just Sandy, there’s guys that were upset that are just showing it underneath the tunnel so it’s not outside in the dugout. I have no problem with guys being being frustrated, that shows you care and he cares. If he sat down and didn’t care, then we have a problem,” said Skip.
Sandy’s final line: 6.2 IP, 7 H, 4 ER, 3 BB, 3 SO, 1 HR. His record fell to 6-11.
What’s next
After a much-needed off-day on Thursday, Miami begins a three-game set against the Washington Nationals. The probables are Braxton Garrett on Friday, Eury Pérez on Saturday, and TBA for Sunday. Miami is now 65-63, 1.5 games back of the third Wild Card spot.
News and Notes
- Pregame, the Marlins made a flurry of roster moves. RHP Tommy Nance was activated off the 60-day IL and INF/OF Garrett Hampson was recalled from AAA Jacksonville. LHP Ryan Weathers was optioned to AAA and OF Avisail Garcia was placed on the 10-day IL with a left hamstring strain.
- Former Marlin Garrett Cooper went 2-for-3 against his old team.
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