Sandy Alcantara, the 2022 National League Young Award winner, continues to round into form. The right-hander turned in another encouraging performance Sunday afternoon, leading the Marlins to a 5–3 victory over the Atlanta Braves at loanDepot park.

Alcantara has held opponents to three earned runs or fewer in each of his last four starts, posting a 2.73 ERA in June — a significant improvement on his 6.69 ERA on the season.

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“He’s continuing to pitch the way everyone expected him to coming into the season,” Marlins manager Clayton McCullough said postgame. “He’s on a good run now with all his pitches and the strike-throwing continues to improve, which is allowing him to go deeper into games and be more effective.”

The Dominican right-hander has allowed just seven earned runs through 23 innings this month, a significant turnaround from May, when he gave up 24 earned runs across 25 innings (8.64 ERA).

“He’s gotten a lot better with his secondary stuff — throwing it for strikes and forcing hitters to respect it,” catcher Nick Fortes said. “Earlier in the year, he was leaning heavily on his fastball and it was getting hit. Now he’s mixing his pitches better, and it’s helped his fastball play up.”

Alcantara leaned heavily on his slider against Atlanta, throwing it 29% of the time — his highest rate of the season. “I watched our first game against them and saw they struggled with breaking balls,” Alcantara said. “I took a few things from those matchups, and today the slider/fastball combination was great today.”

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Sunday’s outing might have been his most complete of the month. Alcantara began his strong June stretch with dominant starts against Colorado and Pittsburgh, allowing just two earned runs across 12 combined innings with 10 strikeouts. He then limited the first-place Phillies to two runs over five innings before facing Atlanta.

“These are much more complete lineups,” Fortes said of the Phillies and Braves. “From top to bottom, there are no breaks, so the goal is to stay unpredictable while not swaying from what Sandy does well.”

Facing a potent Braves lineup that included Ronald Acuña Jr. and Matt Olson, Alcantara delivered a quality start — his third in four appearances. He allowed six hits, three earned runs and two walks while striking out four through six innings in front of a crowd of 16,486.

“The Braves know him well, so that’s a testament to how well he pitched today,” Fortes added.

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With Alcantara regaining his form, trade speculation is likely to intensify this summer. Miami entered the season open to fielding offers for their 6-5 ace, especially following a dominant spring in which he didn’t allow a run through 12 1/3 innings.

Offensively, the Marlins gave their ace early run support. Kyle Stowers launched his 11th home run of the season in the second inning — his first since May 14.

“He needed that quite a bit,” McCullough added. “When he’s on, he’s hitting the ball the other way and to center, so I’m sure he took a deep breath as he rounded the bases.”

Shortstop Otto Lopez added a pair of run-scoring singles, and Xavier Edwards chipped in with a three-hit performance.

With the win, Miami improved to 31–45 overall and moved to 12–12 in divisional play. The Marlins have an off-day Monday before beginning a three-game series in San Francisco. Right-hander Cal Quantrill will take the mound Tuesday night, opposing future Hall of Famer Justin Verlander.