MIAMI -- Wednesday marked the beginning of summer, and if the Marlins want to remain in the thick of the playoff picture as the dog days make way for autumn, they will need vintage Sandy Alcantara.

In Wednesday afternoon’s 6-3 loss to the Blue Jays at loanDepot park, Alcantara tallied his latest perplexing outing, going seven innings but allowing five runs -- all in the second. After capturing the opener in an 11-0 rout, Miami took the series loss after dropping the next two games to Toronto.

Despite Alcantara not being in his Cy Young form, the Marlins (42-33) still hold a National League Wild Card spot. Excluding Alcantara, Miami starters have a combined 2.82 ERA in June. Imagine what the club could achieve with the right-hander dealing.

“I'm going to bet on Sandy. Our clubhouse is going to bet on Sandy,” manager Skip Schumaker said. “I think he's going to be more [like] that version [of] the second half of that game than what you've seen. Obviously, we need him to be that version moving forward if we want to get to where we want to get to."

Wednesday’s series finale marked the fifth time in 15 starts (33 percent) Alcantara surrendered at least five earned runs. Oddly enough, he has completed at least seven frames in three of those outings. In 2022, Alcantara gave up five or more earned runs in just three of his 32 starts (nine percent).

As has been the case all year, a blowup inning tainted an otherwise solid start. Including Wednesday’s five-run second, Alcantara has given up four or more runs in a frame five times this season -- tied with White Sox right-hander Lance Lynn for the MLB lead among starting pitchers.

Toronto opened the second with four straight hits: Matt Chapman and Cavan Biggio doubled, and Santiago Espinal and Kevin Kiermaier followed with singles. On the Kiermaier knock, the Marlins were playing him to pull, and his ground ball found a hole.

Alcantara struck out Tyler Heineman on a foul bunt, but George Springer tacked on a two-run single with a chopper over the drawn-in infield, and Whit Merrifield capped the scoring with an RBI single. All six hits came on the second pitch of the at-bat.

“[Sandy's] arguably one of the best in the game and has an arsenal to match it, so for us just to string together some quality at-bats right there was huge,” Springer said. “He looked the same. His arsenal is impressive, and he throws hard and he's smart. So I just think for us to string together five or six at-bats right there was huge.”

Two trends regarding Alcantara stand out from last year to this year.

During his Cy Young campaign, batters hit .233/.289/.371 against Alcantara with a runner in scoring position. Entering Wednesday, that slash line was a whopping .397/.442/.565. His 60.5 percent strand rate was the third lowest among 118 pitchers with at least 50 innings this season (league average is 71.9 percent); In 2022, Alcantara’s was 78.8 percent.

“There's no luck for me this year, but I know it,” said Alcantara, who believes the implementation of the pitch timer could be a factor in his struggles with men on base. “There's a lot of people talking negative things about me this year. But [I need to] just keep believing in myself. I know I'm here. I've got more opportunities to get better. That's why we're here.”

There’s also the quality of Alcantara’s changeup. After recording the best run value (-25) of any changeup by a Major Leaguer in 2022, the pitch's run value was +3 entering Wednesday. That 28-run change is the worst among players who have gone from a negative value on a pitch type to a positive one from '22 to '23. Though the whiff rate on Alcantara’s changeup had increased from 34.4 percent last year to 35.5 percent entering his start against the Blue Jays, so had the hard-hit rate (from 29.1 percent to 45 percent).

Two of the hits in the decisive second came on the changeup -- though both pitches were located at the bottom of the zone.

“I don't think the feel's been off for him,” said Jacob Stallings, who has caught every Alcantara start since 2022. “I don't know if [the changeup] feels different, maybe just not putting [it] in as good of places. It doesn't seem to have the same effect on hitters as it did last year. But I thought Sandy threw the ball well today, and [I’m] just frustrated for him, just because I feel like, for the most part, he continues to throw the ball better than he's getting results for. So just frustrated for him for sure.”