Alcantara ready to start 3rd Opening Day in a row
JUPITER
The decision was inevitable, but now it’s official.
Right-handed pitcher Sandy Alcantara will be the Miami Marlins’ starter when they begin the 2022 season against the San Francisco Giants on Friday at Oracle Park.
“Opening Day in San Francisco, that’s going to be amazing,” Alcantara said Saturday after being told the news. “A lot of fun. It’s going to be cold, too. But that doesn’t matter. We just have to be outside and competing.”
This will be Alcantara’s third consecutive Opening Day nod. He is the third pitcher in franchise history to start on Opening Day in back-to-back-to-back seasons. Josh Beckett (2003-05) and Josh Johnson (2010-12) are the others.
In his previous two Opening Day starts, Alcantara has allowed just one earned run over 12 2⁄3 innings with five hits and four walks with 14 strikeouts.
“This is an amazing opportunity for me, for my family and all of baseball,” Alcantara said. “I feel blessed right now . ... I’m here for it and I’m here to be the No. 1.”
And the Marlins showed this offseason how much they value Alcantara as their No. 1 pitcher by giving him a five-year, $56 million contract extension.
Alcantara, 26, cemented his spot last season as the ace of a young-yet-talented Marlins pitching rotation. He started 33 games last season, pitching to a 3.19 ERA while holding opponents to a .223 batting average.
Alcantara struck out 201 batters over 205 2⁄3 innings, becoming just the fifth pitcher in franchise history to both pitch at least 200 innings and strike out at least 200 batters in the same season.
His 23 quality starts, defined as throwing at least six innings while giving up no more than three earned runs, were second in MLB last year behind only the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Walker Buehler.
Alcantara had 10 games last season in which he pitched at least seven innings and gave up no more than one earned run, a mark matched only by the Phillies’ Zack Wheeler.
Since joining Miami’s rotation full-time at the start of the 2019 season, Alcantara has a 3.48 ERA over 445 innings spanning 72 starts.
“Sandy just continues to get better,” Marlins manager Don Mattingly said earlier in spring training, “and that’s really what we’re going to ask him still . ... His strikeout numbers are going up. We’ve talked about that a lot. It’s really more his evolution, continuing to get ahead in the count. He’s got great stuff. Get into advantage counts, stay on the attack, just him keep evolving and becoming better.”
Alcantara’s goal for 2022 is simple.
“Take advantage of last year’s [success] and do the same this year,” Alcantara said. “Be healthy. Finish strong. Do my job.”
Added Mattingly: “I think what we’re going to see now from Sandy is going to be more subtle. We’ll see him more in the strike zone. I know he wants to get ahead in the count. Little things that you work on over the course of the season.”
THE REST OF THE STARTING ROTATION
The order for the rest of the rotation hasn’t been finalized yet, but the group is set up for Pablo Lopez to be the No. 2 starter followed by Trevor Rogers, Elieser Hernandez and Jesus Luzardo. This would put the Marlins’ mostestablished three pitchers at the top and puts some separation between the two left-handed pitchers in the group — Rogers and Luzardo.
Edward Cabrera, Miami’s third-ranked prospect and the No. 35 overall prospect in baseball according to MLB Pipeline, could be a contender to join the rotation early in the season once he is properly built up.
The 23-year-old entered spring training behind in his throwing program compared to the Marlins’ other starters, a by-product of MLB’s 99-day lockout that did not allow players on the 40-man roster to communicate with their parent clubs until a collective bargaining agreement was ratified.
“He’s a guy you could say, ‘You can put him out there and he’s going to be competitive, and it’s going to look OK,’ but there’s development left for him,” Mattingly said of Cabrera.
Marlins starting pitchers last year finished 13th in ERA (4.08) and batting average against (.242) as well as 12th in strikeouts per nine innings pitched (9.10).