'El Caballo' a dark horse for Cy Young Award thanks to career-best stretch

CINCINNATI -- Sandy Alcantara has been the picture of reliability for the Marlins.

PitchCom not working in the first inning? Not a problem. Strikeout stuff not totally there? He's able to make it work. For the 19th time in 26 starts, the 30-year-old delivered a quality start and gave the Marlins a chance to win.

Miami's bats didn't return the favor Friday in a 1-0 loss to the Reds at Great American Ball Park, but the outing underscored Alcantara's case as a dark horse candidate to win the National League Cy Young Award.

Alcantara dominated the Reds for seven innings despite only picking up five swings-and-misses, with his two strikeouts coming on his 94th and 100th pitches. Instead, as he’s done throughout the year, he suppressed hard contact. Only five of the 22 balls the Reds put in play against him registered as hard-hit.

With 130 punchouts in a league-leading 170 2/3 innings this season, the 6-foot-5 righty may not have the strikeout totals that other Cy Young candidates have -- including Cincinnati's Chase Burns, who K’d eight across seven scoreless innings on Friday -- but he’s found ways to put up goose eggs as he lowered his ERA to 3.43.

“I don't care about a strikeout,” Alcantara said. “I know as soon as I got to the big leagues that I don't get that many strikeouts. I just need to worry about pitching and going deep in the game and always give a chance for my team to win the game."

The Dominican Republic native extended his scoreless streak to 25 innings, which tied his career high, before giving up a run in the sixth inning when left fielder Heriberto Hernández misplayed a line drive off the bat off Eugenio Suárez.

He previously had a 20-inning scoreless streak across his first three starts, making him the only pitcher this year with multiple scoreless streaks of at least 20 innings. The two most recent pitchers to accomplish that in a season were Nathan Eovaldi in 2023 and, naturally, Alcantara in his 2022 Cy Young campaign.

“He's a fierce competitor,” Marlins manager Clayton McCullough said. “Now we're seeing the level of execution, the roll he's been on, how he's able to move the fastball to both sides of the plate, the type of action he gets on the changeup, and then now with the confidence he has in there to throw the multiple breaking balls, use the cutter to both sides.

"This guy knows how to win. He knows how to go out there and get outs. He understands where he is in moments of games and when he needs to step on it. What's been just so impressive to watch is the level of execution that he's had, really, for the last two-plus months.”

Alcantara was especially happy with his two-seamer, which picked up chase on more than 60 percent of pitches out of the zone. Even when the Reds did make contact, they were just 2-for-17. Opponents have just a .294 wOBA against the pitch, which ranked 49th out of 177 pitchers (min. 50 PAs).

Alcantara is clearly still on the outside looking in for the Cy Young race -- Jacob Misiorowski, Cristopher Sánchez and Chris Sale have minuscule ERAs and FIPs with far more K’s -- but he's one of 11 NL pitchers who have accumulated at least 3 fWAR. It’s a terrific bounceback season after he missed 2024 after undergoing Tommy John surgery and posting a 5.36 ERA in 2025.

And he's also proven to be something rare in 2026: a workhorse. He’s on pace to cruise past 200 innings for the third time in his career by mid-September, which has been crucial for managing the Marlins’ bullpen and keeping their playoff hopes alive.

“Some of the other guys are having terrific years,” McCullough said. “Sandy's been phenomenal. He should be [in the race] when you look at it. Wins still matter because you've got to be out there a lot of times for the game to be decided, and, certainly, the amount of innings he's able to pile up, how he's suppressed runs this year, he's having a really phenomenal season.

“He's just built for this.”