Sandy Alcantara solid once again but gets little run support as Marlins lose to Phillies

For six innings on Friday, Sandy Alcantara was virtually unhittable — similar to his performance over the past two months for the Miami Marlins en route to his second All-Star Game selection. He had allowed just one baserunner in that span that was negated by a double play.

But in the seventh, the Philadelphia Phillies cracked the Marlins’ ace.

One walk followed by three consecutive hits put a pair of runs on the board for Philadelphia.

It was enough to beat the Marlins, 2-1, at loanDepot park to begin a three-game series to wrap up both teams’ schedule ahead of the All-Star Break. The Marlins fall to 43-46 while Philadelphia improves to 47-43.

In that pivotal seventh inning, a Rhys Hoskins one-out walk and Nick Castellanos single put runners on first and second. Darick Hall’s double to left field scored Hoskins to tie the game at 1-1, but Castellanos ran through a stop sign at third base and was thrown out at home on a relay throw from Jorge Soler to Miguel Rojas to Jacob Stallings for the second out of the inning.

J.T. Realmuto — who broke up Alcantara’s perfect game bid with a fifth-inning single — then hit a double of his own that skipped past third baseman Brian Anderson and into left field to give Philadelphia a 2-1 lead.

“I was using all my pitches,” Alcantara said, “but when you’ve gotta face the same guys again and again, they know what pitches you want to throw. I think that’s how they made the adjustments to me.”

That four-batter span was the lone bad stretch of Alcantara’s final outing before the All-Star Break.

The Marlins’ ace finished his final game of the first half with the two earned runs on four hits and two walks while striking out 12 over eight innings. He threw 106 pitches, 75 of which went for strikes.

With that, Alcantara’s final stats through his 19 starts ahead of the All-Star Break include an MLB-leading 138 1/3 innings pitched and a 1.76 ERA that ranks second in the majors behind only the Tampa Bay Rays’ Shane McClanahan (1.71). He’s also the only pitcher in MLB to throw multiple complete games.

“I feel my first half of the season was great,” Alcantara said. “My routine was there to help me a lot. We’ve battled. We battle all the time. We compete all the time. But sometimes we have bad days.”

He is on a run of 13 consecutive starts with at least seven innings pitched, including 12 outings in that stretch in which he has allowed no more than two earned runs. It’s the longest stretch by any pitcher in a single season since 2014 when Clayton Kershaw (17), Felix Hernandez (16) and David Price (14) had longer streaks.

“He’s just taken another step confidence-wise,” Marlins manager Don Mattingly said pregame. “I’ve seen when he faces some guys that he’s faced in the past that he’s kind of backed off of or pitched cautiously. Now, it’s like there’s no one out there that he really doesn’t just go attack. That’s what I like to see, just that next level of confidence.”

He had retired the first 13 batters he faced, including striking out Kyle Schwarber and Nick Castellanos twice apiece, before Realmuto hit a one-out single through the right side in the fifth. The hit was ultimately erased when Bryson Stott hit into an inning-ending double play.

The only run support Alcantara got came in the second inning. Avisail Garcia drew a leadoff walk, advanced to third on an Anderson double and scored on a Bryan De La Cruz sacrifice fly to give Miami an early 1-0 lead.

With the way Alcantara was pitching, though, one run looked like it might be enough for Miami to sneak away with a win.

But then came the seventh inning, and the Marlins’ lead was gone for good.

The Marlins only had two baserunners between the third and eighth innings before attempting to put together one final rally in the ninth.

Jorge Soler, Garcia and Anderson drew back-to-back-to-back one-out walks to load the bases. Jesus Sanchez hit into a fielder’s choice with pinch-runner Billy Hamilton getting forced out at home before Rojas struck out swinging to end the game.

“You want to be able to have room for error,” Mattingly said. “You want to be able to scratch a run or two in there somewhere while you’re getting those zeroes. We just weren’t able to do it.”