Padres stymied by Sandy Alcantara, drop series to Marlins

Kevin Acee, The San Diego Union-Tribune on Jul 23, 2025

Published in Baseball

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MIAMI — Two starting pitchers who have in not-so-long-ago seasons been among the most feared in baseball took the mound Wednesday afternoon at loanDepot park.

Only one of them evidently did so after emerging from a time machine.

It was like 2022 for the Marlins’ Sandy Alcantara, who crafted his best game of the season in the Marlins’ 3-2 victory over the Padres.

The tall right-hander, who was the National League Cy Young winner in ‘22, on Wednesday allowed four hits and one unearned run while completing seven innings for the first time this season.

The Padres scored once more after he left, making Manny Machado’s MLB-leading 14th error in the fifth inning the pivotal play in the game, as it turned into an extra run when Jesús Sánchez homered two batters later.

But the story was the rediscovered glory by Alcantara, who is in his comeback year after missing all of ‘24 following Tommy John surgery in October 2023.

He had allowed fewer than two runs just once in his previous 19 starts. The Padres only got two runners in scoring position against him on Wednesday.

It might have been a heck of a game had Dylan Cease pitched like it was 2022, the year he finished second in American League Cy Young voting.

Instead, Cease (3-10, 4.59) had his most 2025 start yet. His fastball was consistent only in that it missed above the zone much of the day, and he was done after throwing 95 pitches in five innings.

He left with the Padres trailing 3-1.

Cease surrendered a run in the first when he walked the first two batters and surrendered a two-out single. After the Padres tied the game in the fourth, the error by Machado and Sánchez’s two-run homer in the fifth provided what stood as the difference.

Alcantara had a 7.14 ERA on the season and was worse lately, having allowed 22 runs in 23 innings over his previous four starts.

The Padres scored six runs in four innings against him on May 28. He did not strike out anyone, and got just one miss on 29 swings.

Wednesday was different.

Machado struck out swinging to end the first inning.

Jackson Merrill struck out swinging to end the second.

Elias Díaz struck out swinging to end the third.

To that point, no Padres batter had reached base. It was the first time this season Alcantara had made it through the batting order at the start of a game without allowing a baserunner.

Luis Arraez, the second batter in the fourth inning, reached out and slapped a single through a hole at third base against an infield that was shifted to the right.

Arraez got to second on an errant pickoff attempt by catcher Nick Fortes, and the game was tied when Machado lined a single to left field.

It was not a strikeout that ended the fourth inning but instead a double-play grounder by Gavin Sheets.

The top of the fifth ended on a double play grounder as well. And it lasted just five pitches — four of them after Xander Bogaerts lined the first pitch of the inning to left field for a single. Jackson Merrill followed by lining out to left before Jake Cronenworth sent a grounder to shortstop Otto Lopez, who stepped on second and threw to first base.

It took Alcantara 11 pitches to get three groundouts in the sixth.

He had thrown 77 pitches as he began the seventh inning for the first time this season.

Arraez made him throw eight pitches before lofting a fly ball to left field for the first out.

Machado followed with a double to the gap in right-center field, but fly balls to center field by Sheets and Bogaerts ended the inning.

The Padres left two runners on in the eighth inning after Merrill led off with a double against reliever Josh Simpson, got to third on Cronenworth’s groundout to the right side and scored on pinch-hitter Jose Iglesias’ single. Right-hander Calvin Faucher replaced the lefty Simpson and got pinch-hitter Trenton Brooks to pop out, yielded a single to Fernando Tatis Jr. and retired Arraez on a fly ball out to center field.