MIA 3, PHI 4: Blown save dampens great Sandy start

The reigning NL Cy Young award winner enters the All-Star break with only three wins as the Marlins bullpen couldn't preserve his lead.

The Marlins opened up a new series on Friday vs. the Philadelphia Phillies. Any matchup between these division rivals is important, but especially this one as they battle for 2nd place in the NL East and NL Wild Card positioning as the All-Star break quickly approaches.

Before the first pitch was even thrown, Marlins GM Kim Ng made news by announcing that breakout rookie Eury Pérez has been optioned down to AA-Pensacola. Despite Pérez's success, the club is carefully managing his innings. The door is open for him to receive a potential call-up later on in the year.

The Marlins were able to get on the board early by beating out throws to first base on two separate occasions. Jacob Stallings showed off his wheels to get Miami on the board early and grab himself a base hit. Dane Myers followed Stallings with a 30.1 ft/sec run to 1st base that kept the inning alive and extended Miami's lead to 2-0.

In the third inning, Garrett Cooper hit a solo shot of Zack Wheeler. For Coop, this home run makes it his 12th of the year and the most for him since 2019 when he launched 15.

Aside from those plays, Wheeler had his ace stuff. He went six innings with seven strikeouts as Miami could not figure him out. In 21 career starts against the Marlins, Wheeler has a 2.46 ERA.

Meanwhile, Sandy Alcantara was coming off a rough start vs. the Braves. He settled down in this start with five straight scoreless innings including back-to-back strikeouts on Nicholas Castellanos and Bryce Harper. Sandy mixed his pitches very well—using each of his four pitches between 23-32% of the time with his sinker leading the way—and threw 74.7% of his pitches for strikes. His one mistake was giving up a solo shot former Marlin JT Realmuto with two outs in the top of the sixth.

Final Line: 6.2 IP, 8 H, 1 ER, 5 SO, 95 Pitches

The game flipped for the Marlins in the 9th inning when A.J. Puk entered the game with a 3-1 lead trying to secure the save. Puk gave up an early single to Realmuto and a double to Alec Bohm, which cut the lead to just one run. With a runner on second and two outs, Cristian Pache (who is not known for his power) launched a two-run homer of an 84 MPH sweeper to ultimately win the game for the Phillies.

This has been Puk's second blown save in a row. In his last two innings, Puk has given up 5 ER, with two home runs. In the postgame scrum, Skip Schumaker was still adamant that Puk's role was not going to be changing for the time being.

Puk's previous blown save was overshadowed by a comeback against Jordan Hicks and the Cardinals, but this time, there was no Marlins Magic in the bottom of the 9th. A leadoff single by Jean Segura could not get things going as Miami fell to the Phillies by a score of 4-3.

This loss closes the gap even more between Miami and Philly to just 1.5 games. Both teams have 39 losses on the year. The Phillies have won 13 consecutive road games.

Three Stars of the Game (Marlins)

• Sandy Alcantara (6.2 IP, 8 H, 1 ER, 5 SO, 95 pitches)
• Garrett Cooper (2-4, HR)
• Joey Wendle (2-4, 2 2B)

Marlins are back Saturday at 4:10 for the second game of the series vs. the Phillies. The starting pitching matchup will be the red-hot Braxton Garrett vs. Ranger Suárez.