Miami’s woes continue as Atlanta defeats Sandy Alcantara and the Marlins again

MIAMI – In what was expected to be a tightly contested pitcher’s duel on Thursday night, the Miami Marlins fell behind immediately and never recovered, dropping their third consecutive game to the Atlanta Braves. With the loss, Miami fell to a season-worst seven games under .500 and now sits alone in last place in the NL East.

When asked if the team needs to start doing things differently, manager Clayton McCullough said, “No, we’re going to keep going, continue with what we’re doing and get ourselves ready for a new series. Things will turn. When? I don’t know, but we’ll hang in there and be okay.”

The season is still relatively young, but it has reached the point where front offices begin evaluating their clubs to determine what changes need to be made and which direction they should take in the coming months. In Miami’s case, the current stretch is making those decisions increasingly difficult for the front office.

The theme of May has been falling behind early and often. In 19 games this month, Marlins starters entered Thursday with a first-inning ERA above 11 — by far the worst mark in Major League Baseball. The next closest team owns a 6.15 ERA in the opening frame. On Thursday, that troubling trend continued, even with Sandy Alcantara on the mound.

After Ronald Acuña Jr. reached on an infield single, Michael Harris II launched his 10th home run of the season to dead center field — the first of his two home runs on the night. The homer came on a 1-2 changeup.

“Some teams are different,” Alcantara said. “They’re at the top of the division, winning a lot of games because they’re very aggressive and trying to score runs right away.”

When asked about the frustration within the pitching staff during this rough stretch, Alcantara admitted it hasn’t been easy.

“It’s hard because when I’m out there, I want us to win games consistently, but we’ve gotta stay together. We know what we’re capable of, and sometimes we can compete against anyone, but we’re just not getting the results right now.”

Alcantara surrendered another solo home run in the second inning, this time to Mike Yastrzemski, before settling in during the middle innings and keeping Atlanta off the board until the sixth. That’s when Acuña Jr. delivered a two-run single that effectively sealed the game for Atlanta.

Alcantara’s final line: 6 IP, 9 H, 6 ER, 0 BB, 3 SO. He threw 94 pitches, 68 for strikes.

“I’m not happy about it,” the Dominican right-hander said of his performance. “I think I could have done better. I left some pitches over the middle early, and they took advantage.”

The Marlins were able to keep the game relatively close thanks to a trio of solo home runs — two from Kyle Stowers and one from Owen Caissie.

“We’ve gotta keep believing. We know we’ve gotta get through this as a team and keep fighting every day as we continue to move forward,” Miami’s ace said postgame.

Following the series loss, Miami will welcome the New York Mets to loanDepot park for a weekend series. Right-hander Eury Pérez will look to get his season on track against Tobias Myers. First pitch is scheduled for 7:10 p.m.