Matt Martell is on a well-deserved vacation this week. Emma Baccellieri has you covered in his stead.
Of Sandy Alcantara’s many impressive statistics this season—including a 1.82 ERA and an 0.91 WHIP—there is perhaps none so remarkable as his total innings pitched.
The 26-year-old has made himself into one of the best pitchers in the game so far this year and could potentially start the All-Star Game for the National League. He’s at the top of a young Marlins rotation with plenty of potential. And in an era that has come with considerable anxiety about the role of the starting pitcher and whether it can be saved, Alcantara looks like a classic in a big way: He leads MLB in innings pitched with 123 ⅓ , which comes out to 7.3 innings per start, a true rarity nowadays. It’s uncommon to average more than six innings per game. (There are just 13 pitchers doing it this year other than Alcantara.) Yet he’s working even deeper than that.
