HOUSTON -- Sandy Alcantara was on track to become the Marlins’ franchise leader in quality starts, surrendering two runs over seven innings. But the Astros got to the All-Star right-hander in the eighth, and his quest for his 111th career quality start will have to wait another outing.
Alcantara allowed five runs in seven-plus innings and the Marlins’ offense sputtered in a 5-2 loss to the Astros on Wednesday night at Daikin Park, pushing Miami’s losing streak to nine games.
“It’s not good the way we’ve been playing the last 10 games, but it’s part of the game,” Alcantara said. “We have to keep things together. We know we will have another opportunity to be good next time, but today wasn’t good for us.”
Alcantara surrendered nine hits, including three home runs, and struck out three. The three home runs tied a career high. Alcantara had yielded three runs or fewer in each of his previous three starts.
“He was fantastic,” manager Clayton McCullough said. “I thought he was in control most of the night. He had a very efficient pitch count. He really moved things along well after the first couple of innings. I hate how things went down there, but I thought he threw the ball fantastic.”
The right-hander relied mostly on his four-seam fastball, changeup and sinker, throwing those three 77% of the time. Alcantara threw 30 four-seamers, 29 sinkers and 24 changeups out of 108 pitches. He got four whiffs on 15 swings off the four-seamer and five whiffs on 14 changeups. He had 12 total swings and misses.
“He’s getting a ton of ground balls now,” McCullough said. “He’s got the ability to use all of his stuff, use both sides of the plate. He’s got count leverage it feels like almost every at-bat. He’s just on the attack and using his entire arsenal. His stuff has been great. It’s what he’s been doing for a month-plus, which is going deep into games and giving us a chance to win.”
With the game tied at 2, Alcantara gave up a Yordan Alvarez two-run homer and an Isaac Paredes solo shot in back-to-back eighth-inning at-bats for the difference.
“They just got me,” Alcantara said.
Trailing 2-0 in the fourth, the Marlins plated two with a two-out rally. After Griffin Conine walked, Javier Sanoja had an RBI double and Joe Mack hit an RBI single to knot it at 2.
“I thought we had some really good at-bats,” McCullough said. “I thought we created some opportunities. I thought we hit some balls hard. I think we just need to keep plugging along with that. The at-bat quality as a whole was good tonight. I thought we squared some balls up.”
The Marlins had a change in the lineup, with Esteury Ruiz starting in center for Jakob Marsee. Ruiz went 1-for-4 and stole two bases in the seventh.
“He’s been a really fantastic spark for us,” McCullough said of Ruiz. “He’s come off the bench and done a lot of great things. When he’s gotten chances to start, he’s done things like today. He’s certainly a threat on the bases.”
McCullough said pregame that Marsee would still get playing time, but they wanted to give Ruiz an opportunity since Marsee has struggled this season.
“I talked with Jakob, and … it’s no secret Jakob is struggling this year from a performance standpoint,” McCullough said. “Jakob is still going to play with regularity, but I told him there’s going to be some times here coming up where, versus righties, he doesn’t start.
“Ruiz in a limited sample of opportunity this year has done some really nice things for us. It just got to a point where we are going to give Esteury some more opportunity to get into the lineup. It doesn’t mean that we don’t believe that Jakob can’t get things going or certainly don’t think he’s going to be a very good player for us moving forward.”
With the off-day on Thursday, the Marlins will have a chance to reset before starting a three-game homestand against the Padres.
Alcantara said the losing streak has been tough, and the Marlins need to get back to how they were playing the first half of the season.
“We’ve been playing way different than the first half,” Alcantara said. “I think we have to put things together and find a way to put ourselves in that situation that we were in during the first half.”