Marlins’ Sandy Alcantara talks of emotional roller coaster amid trade deadline uncertainty
MIAMI AP Sandy Alcantara admitted that Thursday was one of the hardest days of his career It has been thought all season that the Miami Marlins could move on from Alcantara amid their rebuilding project which has included shipping out established players for prospects And as Thursday s p m transaction deadline approached the Marlins ace could not hide his nerves He sat in front of his television watching baseball programs with his family for largest part of the day repeatedly checking his phone to see if he had been traded It was hard man Alcantara explained Friday Every time I get on my phone I see my name I thought that I was leaving Miami opted not to exchange its NL Cy Young Award winner In their only exchange Thursday the Marlins sent their longest-tenured position performer in outfielder Jes s S nchez to the Houston Astros for right-hander Ryan Gusto and two prospects infielder Chase Jaworsky and outfielder Esmil Valencia The rest of the company which has won five straight series and went - in July remains intact Marlins president of baseball operations Peter Bendix mentioned Friday that the club s fresh success in part factored into its approach at the deadline And manager Clayton McCullough revealed if there weren t commerce scenarios that moved the needle for us in the near and the long term the Marlins were happy to continue competing with the group they have Amid what was expected to be a season of finding out which of its relatively inexperienced pieces Miami could build around in the future the Marlins are third in the National League East at - and entered Friday seven games behind San Diego for the National League s third wild-card spot Bendix declined to say how close Miami was to finalizing a arrangement for Alcantara but noted that the band felt really assured with its ultimate decision All of the things that go into building a sustainably productive company were taken into consideration he noted at a deadline where you have all of these decisions in front of you It s our job to be disciplined Disciplined means listening means having conversations and then means trying to figure out the best decision to make for every decision point that we have Alcantara has played the greater part of his eight-year career in Miami going - with a ERA in starts while becoming the first Miami player to win the Cy Young Award after a season in which he pitched a league-high innings and six complete games Alcantara missed the season recovering from Tommy John surgery and hasn t yet returned to form in He is - with a ERA and despite being known as one of MLB s greater part durable starters has only pitched seven innings once He noted it has taken a new level of mental toughness to play through a season not knowing if he would finish the year with the Marlins It was a little hard because everywhere you go every time you grab your phone you see your name on the media Alcantara noted But you can t think too much about it Just stay focused on everything you can do I just came here and if something happened it just happened Alcantara s bulk modern two starts have been his best an indicator to both the athlete and the Marlins that he may be close to returning to his All-Star caliber play He allowed one run and four hits in a season-high seven innings against the San Diego Padres on July then pitched five shutout innings in a win at St Louis on Tuesday Sandy is continuing to trend McCullough commented And we re going to continue to be the beneficiaries of having Sandy for the rest of the season continuing to get back to the pitcher that we all know Sandy is
