NEW YORK – Marlins right-hander Sandy Alcantara tossed six-plus innings, while batterymate Joe Mack went deep in Sunday afternoon’s 2-0 win over the Mets at Citi Field.
Since its franchise-record 12-game skid, Miami has won six of seven leading into Monday’s 6 p.m. ET Trade Deadline. Now we wait to see what becomes of the Marlins, who entered Sunday 1 1/2 games behind the Phillies for the final National League Wild Card.
Mack took righty Robert Stock deep for the game’s first run in the fifth, sending a full-count cutter over the right-center-field wall. Four of his 11 homers have come in batterymate Alcantara’s starts.
Since debuting on May 4, Mack entered the series finale ranked as follows among Major League catchers with at least 210 plate appearances: fourth in wins above replacement (1.7, per FanGraphs) and tied for fifth in homers (11).
Alcantara, meanwhile, has posted back-to-back scoreless starts and lowered his season ERA to 3.68 – the lowest it has been since May 16 (3.53). After the first two batters reached in the third, Alcantara retired 12 of the next 14 until trouble in the seventh.
Consecutive hits to open the inning placed a pair of Mets runners in scoring position, chasing Alcantara and ushering in righty Michael Petersen to limit the damage. Petersen, whose name has come up in Deadline rumors, allowed the decisive runs in Thursday’s loss in his return from a comebacker off the forearm last Sunday.
With the infield in, Petersen walked Marcus Semien to load the bases before striking out Jorge Polanco on a slider and Francisco Alvarez on a 98.5 mph four-seamer. Petersen completed his escape act by inducing a groundout to second from A.J. Ewing.
Righty Tyler Zuber worked around a leadoff double in the eighth, while closer Pete Fairbanks – also the subject of trade talk – recorded his fourth consecutive save this week.