Sandy & The Hourglass

 

The Marlins are in second place. Are they in second place because they are honestly kinda good, or are they in second place because their competition is the Nationals, who aren't great, and the Phils and Mets, who had awful losing streaks? It's too soon to say. But it has to help that Sandy Alcantara's finally pitching like his old self again.

The Sandy Alcantara era in Miami has been a strange one, because when they had absolutely nothing they still had him, and then once they were able to build a team and compete, Sandy, well...he got hurt, missed a season and spent 2025 not being too great. And now for 2026 they have a lot more cemented. Xavier Edwards and Otto Lopez make a great DP combo. Kyle Stowers just returned to aid Owen Caissie and Jakob Marsee in the outfield. Liam Hicks is having the contact season of his life. And the bullpen has finally locked in consistently. 

But now...this growing, improving Marlins team has a great Sandy Alcantara performance behind it. Through 5 starts, he's got a 2.80 ERA, 23 Ks, a 1.019 WHIP and a complete game shutout under his belt. This is the guy who won the Cy Young a few years ago. There was a worry that the big season cooked his arm, but that doesn't seem to be the case. He's still dominant, he's still trustworthy, and he can still lead this rotation forward. And just to be clear, he's not exactly doing all the work either. Max Meyer's off to a pretty nice start, and has 28 strikeouts already. Janson Junk and Eury Perez have had some pretty nice starts. I figure Braxton Garrett will be back eventually, there's still room for outside voices, but what they have at the moment is working despite the lack of real exclamation points.

I think what's most relieving about this Marlins team is that the parlance 'well, it won't be pretty' doesn't apply to this team as much as it did to past iterations. There is much better hitting on this team, and more of the contact variety. 5 years ago it was easy to get like 6 guys who hit homers and then only hit .220 and be alright with it, but now that Edwards, Stowers, Hicks, Sanoja and Lopez can just hit for other reasons than just hitting home runs, it gives more of an idea of what the team can accomplish. Last year the Blue Jays contact-hit their way to a World Series, and the Guardians' contact game gets them to the playoffs frequently. The Marlins have enough varied hitting energy to get them far. And if all else fails, they have Deyvison de los Santos, who could probably hit 30 home runs if they can keep him in the majors. 

I feel good about this Marlins team. Granted, if the bottom two disappointments can really turn things around, they'll need to shift into a different gear, so hopefully there's a higher ceiling than usual for the Marlins.

Coming Tomorrow- I still can't believe that this is like the one guy the Rays couldn't wait til he blossomed to trade. They just did it immediately. And now he's one of two ex-Rays leading the Twins rotation.