Marlins' Sandy Alcantara strives to extend streak, fluster Reds

Sandy Alcantara will try to extend his latest scoreless streak for the Miami Marlins on Friday evening when he takes the mound against the host Cincinnati Reds in the opener of a three-game series.

Alcantara (13-6, 3.52 ERA) has not allowed a run in his past three outings covering 20 innings, marking his second scoreless streak of at least 20 innings this season.

The right-hander is the first MLB pitcher with multiple scoreless streaks of at least 20 innings in the same season since Nathan Eovaldi of the Texas Rangers in 2023.

Alcantara is coming off seven shutout innings in a 7-0 win against the Los Angeles Angels last Saturday in a game in which he allowed three hits, struck out eight and walked one.

"Sandy's made his name and his mark in this league with what he did (against the Angels), and that's going deep into games and doing it incredibly efficiently," Marlins manager Clayton McCullough said of the 2022 National League Cy Young Award winner.

During his last outing, Alcantara, 30, passed Ricky Nolasco as the franchise's all-time leader in innings (1,230 2/3).

"Innings pitched, strikeout, quality starts, I don't know how many more records they have," Alcantara said jokingly after the game. "I'm very happy about the opportunity that this organization gives me, to play the game out there with my teammates and amazing coaches that I've had for the past couple years."

Alcantara is just 2-5 with a 3.72 ERA in 10 career appearances (eight starts) vs. the Reds. He last faced them on April 7 and was two outs away from a complete-game shutout but left after surrendering a double and a walk. The bullpen let him down, and Miami lost 6-3 in 10 innings.

Alcantara also will try to re-stabilize a Miami team that's coming off a 13-1 loss to the visiting Pittsburgh Pirates on Thursday afternoon, halting its four-game winning streak.

"Moving forward, stacking series wins is going to be very important," McCullough said. "Unfortunately, (Thursday) was a clunker. They beat us up good, but I think heading on the road now for a big six games in Cincinnati and Philadelphia, to win the series here was still important."

The Reds are returning home after holding on to beat the Chicago White Sox 9-8 on Thursday afternoon in the decisive contest of their three-game series.

Cincinnati, which led 9-5 after seven innings on Thursday, was swept at the Washington Nationals last weekend to start a six-game road trip.

"Both teams' pitching staffs had some troubles, but we got the game in," Reds manager Terry Francona said of Thursday's win. "What I care about is we won. We can go home and see if we can dodge some more rain."

Right-hander Chase Burns (13-2, 2.61 ERA) is scheduled to start for the Reds in the series opener on Friday.

Burns is coming off a rare loss after winning his previous 12 decisions. He surrendered five runs and six hits in 5 1/3 innings of an 8-2 loss to the Nationals last Saturday.

The score was 2-2 heading into the bottom of the sixth, but the Nationals greeted Burns with three hits in a row to spark the four-run inning.

"The hope was to have a nice, good inning, get him through six, tie game, go to our bullpen, and it just ended up being a long inning and he couldn't get through it," Francona said. "I got uncomfortable. That's my biggest concern with him right now, at the end of his outing, trying to reach back for more when he's near 100 (pitches)."

Burns has not faced Miami in his two-year MLB career.

--Field Level Media