Marlins drop 6th straight as Sandy falters early

ST. LOUIS -- Thursday’s off-day could not come soon enough for the Marlins, who have lost a season-high six games in a row following their 6-4 defeat to the Cardinals on Wednesday afternoon at Busch Stadium.

The loss marked the first time the club has gone winless on a trip of six or more games since August 2019. Miami has dropped 11 of its past 16 and fallen to one game out of the final National League Wild Card spot. The Marlins are one of two teams, along with the Reds, still seeking their first victory of the second half.

“I don't think there's any panic in there,” manager Skip Schumaker said. “We just had a tough road trip, and you're going to have a couple of these streaks, unfortunately -- losing streaks, winning streaks -- during the course of a 162-[game season]. Trying to get back to who we were as far as pitching and defense and timely hitting. The off-day couldn't come quick enough. I didn't think we'd need it coming off that [All-Star] break, but I think we all need it, and hopefully we can get back against Colorado.”

During his NL Cy Young Award-winning campaign last year, ace Sandy Alcantara could be counted upon to stop the bleeding. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, he posted an 11-4 record with a 2.13 ERA in 21 starts following a Marlins loss in 2022. This year, however, he is 2-4 with a 3.56 ERA in 10 starts following a Miami defeat.

It looked like vintage Alcantara had come to play when he retired leadoff batter Brendan Donovan on one pitch to open his outing, but it was more of the 2023 version as St. Louis’ aggressive lineup capitalized on mistakes. Paul Goldschmidt singled and Lars Nootbaar walked before Nolan Arenado grounded an RBI single to right. Nolan Gorman followed with a three-run homer to center, giving St. Louis an early 4-0 lead.

Alcantara now leads all Major League pitchers with six instances of surrendering four or more runs in a frame this season, per the Elias Sports Bureau. The 27-year-old righty settled down from there, holding the Cardinals scoreless on just four hits through the sixth inning.

“I was missing a lot up in the zone, so when you miss there, they just want to see it and they swing [at it],” said Alcantara, who threw 100 or more pitches for the first time since May 19. “After that, I just battled inning by inning to try to not let them score more runs, and I did it.

“So for me, I just feel so bad, because like you said, everything happened in one inning. If you see after that, just trying to be concentrating and try to attack the strike zone, and try to go deep in the game.”

Outside of three RBI knocks -- a two-out two-run single from Jesús Sánchez in the third, a solo homer from Bryan De La Cruz in the eighth and an RBI double from Luis Arraez in the ninth -- the Marlins struggled to come up with the clutch knock. They went 2-for-11 with runners in scoring position and left seven runners on base.

Since the start of the second half, Miami is batting .188 with an MLB-low .436 OPS in those situations. Despite recording the club’s 41st game with 10 or more hits -- tied with the Braves for most in MLB -- the Marlins ground into two more double plays for an MLB-high 103 GIDPs on the season.

St. Louis tacked on two insurance runs in the seventh with help from third baseman Jon Berti’s throwing error on Nootbaar’s infield hit. Donovan scored on the play, and Nootbaar came home two batters later on Gorman’s RBI single to right.

“I don't think that we were necessarily pressing in Baltimore, maybe a little more so here,” said catcher Jacob Stallings, who went 2-for-3 as the ninth batter in Wednesday’s lineup. “It's both. Guys here want to win. It's important to them, so there's going to be frustration, especially when most of the games were close games. Everybody's just going to do a little better, and we'll find ourselves on the other end of those close games.”

Miami couldn’t hold its lead once in Baltimore and twice in St. Louis. Wednesday’s finale was the opposite as the squad fell behind early and couldn’t overcome that deficit. Adding insult to injury, Marlins third-base coach Jody Reed broke his right leg when Sánchez’s foul ball struck him during the third-inning at-bat that resulted in the single.

“How do you think we feel?” Alcantara said. “We feel [really] bad, because we lost six games. We just got a bad second-half start, so we've just got to come back to Miami with a positive mentality and try to win some games.”