MIAMI -- Marlins right-hander Sandy Alcantara braced himself for the conversation he knew was to come. After Alcantara struck out the side in the eighth -- including Aaron Judge to end the frame -- manager Skip Schumaker walked from one side of the dugout to the other to chat with his ace. 

“You ready?” Schumaker asked.

“I'm [expletive] ready,” replied Alcantara, who was at 104 pitches. 

Alcantara worked around a leadoff single in the ninth to toss his MLB-best third complete game on 116 pitches, backed by Luis Arraez’s first-inning two-run homer to the second deck, in Saturday’s 3-1 win over the Yankees.

A crowd of 33,980 fans -- the largest non-Opening Day attendance at loanDepot park since April 5, 2014, vs. San Diego -- watched Miami come out blazing to keep pace in the National League Wild Card race. The Marlins have won three of their past four in a second half that began with a 5-17 record.

“Today was as good as you've seen him -- maybe the Twins game [on April 4] matches that -- but where we're at in the season, for him to do that, kind of the way our bullpen was as well, we were going to ride him today,” Schumaker said. “I didn't know he'd go nine innings, complete game, but it was a really impressive outing at a time where our team needed it the most.”

It was vintage Alcantara on the bump, beginning with an economical six-pitch first inning. Overall, he induced 10 groundouts and fanned 10 without allowing an extra-base hit. The reigning NL Cy Young Award winner recorded six complete games last season -- the most by a Major League pitcher in six years -- while leading MLB in innings (228 2/3). His 12 complete games since 2019 (his first full season) are twice as many as the next pitcher on the list: Adam Wainwright.

Despite an uneven 2023 season, Alcantara now has an MLB-high 158 1/3 innings. He has flipped his 4.72 first-half ERA to 2.45 since the All-Star break. Alcantara has thrown a complete game in two of his past four starts, and there might have been another had Schumaker permitted him to go out for the ninth after holding the Phillies scoreless through eight on 101 pitches Aug. 1.

“You’ve got to be ready from pitch one because he's trying to throw strike one to get ahead and put you in a tough spot,” said Billy McKinney, who went 1-for-3 with a walk. “You just try to be ready from pitch one. That's why he went nine. He got ahead early and got in lots of good counts for himself.”

The only trouble Alcantara encountered came during a 23-pitch seventh. McKinney walked with one out, then advanced to second on a balk when Alcantara dropped the ball on the mound in frustration. Isiah Kiner-Falefa followed with an RBI single to right to drive in McKinney.

Alcantara locked in from that point on with an intensity that made Schumaker’s decision to give him the ninth an easy one. His velocity was still up, all of his pitches were working and the location of his slider and changeup were there. 

With the meat of the order due up for the Yankees, Schumaker didn’t want anyone else on the mound. Following the leadoff single by Gleyber Torres, Alcantara retired the next three batters in a row. If someone else had reached, closer David Robertson would have taken over.

“I just want to strike out everybody over there because my mentality when I was sitting in the dugout was 'finish the game,'” Alcantara said. “[It] doesn't matter what happened. Over there, I was striking out the side and thinking about next time, just trying to get ground balls -- and I did it.”

The 27-year-old Alcantara received all the support he would need in that first inning, when Arraez pulled an inside fastball from opener Michael King a Statcast-projected 409 feet for the longest homer of his career. Arraez entered Saturday 7-for-36 (.194) with just one extra-base hit over his past nine games as his MLB-best average dropped to a season-low .366.

With Jorge Soler battling a stomach bug, Schumaker shuffled the top part of his lineup. Soler, who had taken over the leadoff spot this week for the slumping Arraez, was replaced by Jazz Chisholm Jr., while Josh Bell and Arraez flipped into the second and third spots, respectively.

“He's nasty,” Arraez said of Alcantara. “When I faced Sandy, I said, ‘That guy is nasty.’ We need that guy [to perform like] he did today. He did in Tampa. He's the best. He works hard. He works hard every day. And then we need just that guy. He just comes here and competes, throws strikes, and then he just puts in his mind, ‘I will pitch nine innings,’ and he did.”