Offishial News: What stood out about Sandy Alcantara's return; more weekend observations

In his 2025 spring training debut on Sunday, Sandy Alcantara faced Luisangel Acuña (lineout), Mark Vientos (single), Brett Baty (groundout) and Jose Siri (strikeout). He threw 17 pitches in his scoreless inning of work, including nine four-seam fastballs, four sinkers, two sliders and two changeups. His velocity topped out at 99.3 mph, very similar to what we were accustomed to seeing from him prior to undergoing Tommy John surgery.

Beyond just the velocity, the quality of Alcantara's stuff was excellent. Both his sinker and changeup had the characteristics of top-of-the-scale 80-grade pitches, according to tjStuff+.

Still no home runs for the Marlins this spring, but their offense has just as many walks (11) as strikeouts (11), tied with the Athletics for the best ratio in the majors.

Marlins Opening Day is 31 days away.

More Marlins news and content below:

🔷 Victor Mesa Jr. (mild right hamstring strain) is 3-4 weeks away from returning to play, the Marlins say. The 23-year-old outfielder was a longshot to crack the Opening Day roster to begin with, but this setback firmly takes him out of consideration. Mesa also suffered a minor injury last spring to his ankle and his 2024 season ended prematurely due to a lumbar stress reaction. Hopefully, he'll be ready for Triple-A Jacksonville's season opener. More injury updates here.

🔷 Louis Addeo-Weiss explains how bad luck distorted Declan Cronin's numbers last season and what Cronin could do to make his own luck in 2025 despite likely being surrounded by a subpar defense again.

🔷 loanDepot park will host a college baseball game on March 4 between the University of Miami and Florida International University. General admission tickets are on sale now for $28.40 apiece.

🔷 BrooksGate created this 26-man all-star team of players who were traded away by the Marlins at some point during their careers. Five of them (Luis Arraez, Josh Naylor, Marcell Ozuna, Tanner Scott and Christian Yelich) were real-life MLB All-Stars in 2024.

🔷 Elsewhere around baseball, Nicaragua has qualified for the 2026 World Baseball Classic. The winner of Tuesday's game between Spain and Chinese Taipei will qualify as well.

🔷 Today's Grapefruit League game: the Marlins (probable starter LHP Ryan Weathers) visit the Houston Astros (RHP Ronel Blanco). Expect to see a lot of Saturday's starting position players in the lineup again such as Xavier Edwards, Otto Lopez and Matt Mervis. The Astros claim that there will be some sort of free livestream of the game. I don't have the specific link for it yet, but will make it a clickable banner atop the Fish On First website this afternoon when available. Weather permitting, first pitch is scheduled for 1:05 p.m.

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