Marlins’ Sandy Alcantara ‘very frustrated’ with first two months of season. What’s happened?

At this point last year, as the calendar flipped from May to June, Sandy Alcantara was at the beginning of a dominant stretch that turned him from a young starter brimming with potential to the early stages of assembling a breakout 2022 season. The Miami Marlins’ ace had just tossed his fourth of what would be 13 consecutive outings of at least seven innings pitched, 12 of which he held the opposition to no more than two earned runs.

He was the Marlins’ steady leader, the one they could rely on to stop a losing skid or put together an inspirational outing.

This year? Alcantara is still looking for that spark, and it’s not for lack of trying.

He’s 11 starts into his follow-up season after being unanimously named the National League Cy Young Award winner, and his results have been anything but what he expects of himself.

His latest outing was just the latest example.

After giving up four earned runs over 6 1/3 innings in the Marlins’ 9-4 loss to the San Diego Padres on Tuesday, Alcantara has a 4.93 ERA that ranks 64th out of 70 qualified starting pitchers.

The Marlins are now just 3-8 in Alcantara’s 11 starts this season.

“I’m very frustrated,” Alcantara said. “Very very.”

It’s easy to see why. Alcantara’s underlining metrics are similar to what they were a season ago. He’s just not getting the same final results.

The comparison of Alcantara’s first 11 starts over the past two seasons:

▪ 2022: 74 2/3 innings pitched, 1.81 ERA, 3.07 fielding independent pitching (similar to ERA, but only focuses on events a pitcher has control over), .191 batting average against, .556 OPS against, .246 batting average on balls in play, 65-percent strike rate, 71 strikeouts, 24 walks.

▪ 2023: 69 1/3 innings pitched, 4.98 ERA, 3.89 FIP, .239 batting average against, .672 OPS against, .284 BABIP, 67 percent strike rate, 60 strikeouts, 25 walks.

With that, what is the team’s message to Alcantara?

“The underlying numbers are good,” Marlins manager Skip Schumaker said a couple weeks ago. “I think that’s really the message to Sandy. Everything looks good — the velo, the pitch characteristics, everything looks good. Just keep doing what you’re doing and you’ll be OK.”

Is that easier said than done, though? Especially with a pitcher such as Alcantara who holds himself to such a high standard and who is used to being the guy to carry the team and isn’t producing?

“If the underlying numbers are not there, then yeah, it’s tough to say that,” Schumaker said. “You’re always trying to look for ways to get better and try. to fix something. I think there should be some sense of relief that I’m good enough. Baseball is tough. Bad luck happens. If he keeps doing what he’s doing over 35 starts or whatever it is, he’ll be OK.”

However, what Alcantara is doing — in terms of results, not underlying metrics — hasn’t been to his standards.

He has allowed at least four runs in four of 11 starts after giving up that many just six times in 32 starts last year. He has only completed seven innings three times after getting at least that deep into games 22 times last year. He has pitched fewer than six innings five times already after doing so just six times last year.

“That’s part of the game,” Alcantara said. “Last year, everybody was talking a lot of great things about me. But I get it. This year, I’ve been getting in trouble a lot.”

That trouble stems primarily from the types of balls being put into play. Alcantara has been a groundball pitcher all his career.

And while he’s still generally inducing weak contact — the average exit velocity against is 88.7 mph this year, just a tick above his career average of 87.7 mph — opponents are elevating the ball against him. He’s allowing line drives on 26.3 percent of his balls in play, a career high. He’s also generating ground balls just 44.4 percent of the time, a career low.

Alcantara understands this. He’s trying not to dwell on it.

Most of all, he’s trying to get to a point where he is consistently able to contribute.

“I’m not going to be perfect,” Alcantara said. “I just want to be able to compete.”