The Marlins had a chance to do something they badly needed: finish off a game with Sandy Alcantara on the mound and finally halt the slide. Instead, the night unraveled in the eighth, and Miami left Houston with its ninth straight loss after a 5-2 defeat to the Astros.
For seven innings, Alcantara looked like the answer. He gave Miami length, kept Houston to two runs, and watched his offense briefly give him a lift. Javier Sanoja doubled in a run, Joe Mack followed with an RBI single, and the Marlins had the game tied at two heading into the late innings.
Then came the inning that changed everything.
Alcantara returned for the bottom of the eighth with 97 pitches already on the board, a move Clayton McCullough and his staff chose to make despite the off-day coming Thursday. He was lined up to face the top of the Astros order: Jeremy Peña, Yordan Alvarez and Isaac Paredes.
Peña opened with a hit, and Alvarez - whom Alcantara called "the best hitter in baseball right now," - made Miami pay. On the third pitch of the at-bat, a fastball at the bottom of the zone, Alvarez sent a two-run homer 394 feet the other way to put Houston ahead 4-2.
Paredes followed with a home run of his own, pushing the lead to 5-2.
"(Alvarez) covers a lot of different pitches and both sides of the plate," McCullough said. "He's having an All-Star worthy season, MVP-type season, and he put some really good swings on balls. He got us."
Alcantara’s night ended there. He entered the eighth but didn’t record an out, finishing with five runs allowed on nine hits, one walk and three strikeouts. Calvin Faucher took over and struck out two while inducing a pop fly.
Miami’s offense didn’t exactly light up the scoreboard, but it did show more life than it has lately. The Marlins struck out six times, got six hits, and created enough traffic to score twice off Astros starter Peter Lambert. Houston’s bullpen, though, slammed the door, allowing just one hit over three relievers.
"I thought we had a lot of really good at bats," McCullough said. "We created some opportunities.
Thought we hit some balls hard, and I think we just kind of keep plugging along with that. The at-bat quality as a whole was good tonight."
The loss drops Miami to 52-51, leaving the club 1.5 games out of the third National League Wild Card spot. Arizona has won back-to-back games to move into sole possession of that position, while the St.
Louis Cardinals and Pittsburgh Pirates are both half a game back. The Marlins and Washington Nationals are tied with the same record.
Alcantara didn’t sugarcoat where things stand after the defeat.
"We've been like a way different than the first half." He added, "I think we gotta put things together and find a way to put ourselves in that situation that we were in the first half.
This is baseball, someday you win 20 and someday you lose 25. We gotta keep fighting together.”
Miami heads back home for a six-game homestand against two teams, with the San Diego Padres and Philadelphia Phillies set to visit. First pitch on Friday is 7:10 pm EST, with a starter yet to be announced.
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