Max Meyer outpaced Sandy Alcantara’s metrics with nine strikeouts against Pittsburgh, fueling Miami's hot June streak and cementing his status as a legitimate National League award contender.
Sandy Alcantara may be the face of the Miami Marlins starting rotation, but Max Meyer is becoming the most trusted arm in it.
Meyer continued his dominance on Sunday, with nine strikeouts in six one-run innings against the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Marlins won 4-2 behind home runs from Joe Mack and Heriberto Hernandez.
On Friday night, Alcantara hit a milestone with 1,000 strikeouts, cementing himself as one of the top starters in Marlins history. The Marlins' starting rotation workhorse, he is the franchise's only Cy Young winner, having taken home the award in 2022. Having won the award, Alcantara is seen by many as the ace of the franchise.
But Meyer is pushing to take the ace title from him, and as it stands right now, he is, according to the metrics. Meyer has the edge in several key categories, posting a 2.75 ERA compared to Alcantara's 4.25 and a 1.09 WHIP versus Alcantara's 1.31. Meyer has also allowed fewer earned runs (26 to 46), hits (63 to 96), and home runs (7 to 12).
His performance through 15 games has Marlins fans taking notice, and it has also caught baseball's attention. According to MLB Network, when it comes to the Cy Young, he is "in the mix" and is "clearly heading to Philadelphia" for the All-Star Game.
The Cy Young Award is given annually to the best pitcher in each league of Major League Baseball. It is the biggest individual honor a pitcher can receive in baseball.
Meyer's inclusion in MLB Network's Cy Young graphic shows he is on the radar nationally. He has quietly established himself in the second tier of National League Cy Young contenders.
FanDuel lists Meyer as a long shot at +10000 odds to bring the award back to South Florida.
However, being included in the graphic is an accomplishment. At the start of the season, almost no one could have predicted this, yet here we are in mid-June, and Meyer has emerged as one of the top pitchers in the National League. He gets to showcase that on Sunday when he and Skenes duel it out in the final game of the series.
The Marlins (36-36) who now find themselves two games out of the final Wild Card spot, will hand the ball over to Meyer, hoping to take another series in June. After closing out May with five straight losses, the Marlins have won 10 of 12 and have yet to lose a series this month.
The one area Meyer has struggled in this season is going deep into games. In the 14 starts he has made, only four have been considered quality starts. A quality start is when a pitcher throws at least six innings and allows three earned runs or fewer. But in the five-and-dive era, not going deep into games is not the most pressing issue in today's baseball.
Unfortunately for Meyer, the way Jacob Misiorowski of the Milwaukee Brewers and Christopher Sánchez of the Philadelphia Phillies have been pitching, it would take a Herculean performance over his final 18 to 20 starts to overtake them. Both are at or near the top of almost every statistical category. It's why FanDuel has Misiorowski at -110, Sánchez at +180, and the next closest pitcher, Skenes, at +1500.
