‘Vintage Sandy’ needed for Marlins to become playoff contenders

There were two signs over the offseason that proved the Miami Marlins front office believed in what they did in the first year of the latest rebuild and leaned into it going into 2026.

They signed a reliable closer in free agency and kept their ace.

Fresh off an Opening Day pitching performance that prompted infielder Connor Norby to call him “Vintage Sandy” in his postgame interview with the Marlins Radio Network, Sandy Alcantara tossed the first complete game shutout of the season, allowing only three hits with seven strikeouts to lead the Marlins to a 10-0 win over the Chicago White Sox on Wednesday.

“Sandy was really good,” White Sox manager Will Venable said. “I thought we came in with a good game plan, guys were engaged and were competitive. We just got beat by a really good pitcher and I think it’s as simple as that.”

It was Alcantara’s 13th career complete game and first since 2023. A lost art in modern-day pitching, Alcantara won the 2022 National League Cy Young Award for throwing six complete games.

“It’s been a long time since throwing a complete game but this one is special for me,” Alcantara said.

In his first two starts of the season, Alcantara has gone 16 innings without giving up an earned run, nor has he hit the 100-pitch benchmark in each of his starts. He has 12 total strikeouts and two walks while averaging 10.4 pitches per inning.

“We just didn’t have an answer for him. He had really good stuff. He pounded the zone, made it really tough on us to do anything,” Venable said, “just never had a chance.”

Alcantara hasn’t looked as good since his Cy Young season. Unfortunately, that didn’t yield a winning season from the Marlins, and by the time Miami was good enough to reach the postseason a year later, he was declining to the point of requiring Tommy John surgery.

By the time he returned in 2025, it was a completely different team. He still had his affable apprentice in Eury Perez alongside him to form one of the more formidable 1-2 pitching duos in the NL East.

His return to form coincides with the team’s rebirth under a newer, younger flourish. As the Marlins started the previous season with a bunch of unknowns who arrived via waiver claims, mixed with some who came in high-profile trades. He had a pre-All-Star break ERA of 7.22 in 18 starts and the Marlins were as low as 25-41 on June 11, 2025.

A switch was flipped on June 13 and since then, only four division winners have won more games than the Marlins: Milwaukee (64),

Seattle (60), Toronto (60), and Philadelphia (59). Alcantara posted a 3.33 ERA in his final 13 starts of the season as a clear sign of his comeback.

“It’s been well-documented a ton how much of a struggle it was early for him last year and most of the year,” Marlins manager Clayton McCullough said. “So for him, he just never gives in. He just keeps competing.”

Marlins president of Baseball Operations Peter Bendix resisted the urge to trade Alcantara on the final year of a 5-year, $56M extension (with a 2027 team option) knowing what was coming. He predicted on Opening Day that this was going to be Alcantara’s best season and so far he may be right.

The Marlins (5-1) have won both of their home series to start the 2026 season. Miami will travel to New York to take on the Yankees on Easter weekend for their first road trip of the year. They are going to need vintage Sandy all year if their playoff aspirations are to be realistic, and they know that.

“Hopefully I gotta keep healthy all season long and keep winning to take this team into the playoffs,” Alcantara said.