Can Sandy Alcantara’s complete game vs. Rays be the start of a second-half turnaround?

Even before Sandy Alcantara fired his first pitch Wednesday, Jacob Stallings had an inkling things were going to be different than they had been all season.

“He was more upbeat than really I’ve ever seen him on a start day,” said Stallings, who has caught all of Alcantara’s 53 starts during the past two seasons. “He just had energy. You could just tell he was ready to go.”

Nine innings and 97 pitches later, Alcantara proved Stallings right.

Alcantara, who has struggled more than he has succeeded this season following a 2022 campaign in which he was named the National League Cy Young Award winner, fired his second complete game of the season in the Miami Marlins’ 7-1 win against the Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field to split the two-game series. Alcantara allowed just one run on five hits and a walk while striking out seven.

“He was dominant,” Stallings said.

And it came at a time when the Marlins — and Alcantara — needed it the most.

Alcantara has not been the steady ace Miami has been accustomed to having this season. Even with the complete game, Alcantara still has a 4.46 ERA on the season — 44th among 59 qualified pitchers entering Thursday. The team is vying for a playoff spot in a full season for the first time since 2003 and needs its ace to get going in the second half to provide stability in a rotation that could face questions down the stretch as young pitchers in the group continue to push well beyond their career highs in innings.

A performance like Wednesday is the perfect reminder of what Alcantara is capable of doing — and a glimpse into what Miami hopes it will get during the final two months of the season.

“If we have that version of Sandy in the second half,” Marlins manager Skip Schumaker said, “I like our chances.”

The version of Alcantara the Marlins received on Wednesday — “vintage Sandy,” as Schumaker referred to him — looked like the pitcher that won the Cy Young Award a season ago. He induced a steady stream of weak contact, got outs early in counts and kept his fastball velocity up in the later innings. His 19 swings-and-misses induced were the second most this season.

“Everything was good,” Alcantara said.

Alcantara’s 97 pitches were the fewest for a nine-inning complete game this season. He is also one of just two pitchers with multiple complete games so far in the 2023 season along with the Texas Rangers’ Nathan Eovaldi.

The complete game was No. 11 in his career, which is tied for third most in Marlins franchise history with Kevin Brown and Livan Hernandez and trails only Dontrelle Willis (15) and A.J. Burnett (14).

Alcantara’s other complete game this year came on April 4 against the Minnesota Twins, a 100-pitch effort in his second start of the season.

After that, Alcantara’s results regressed. His ERA was still as high as 5.08 in mid-June, the culprit of inconsistency with his command and on many occasions one big inning per start that nullified many positives that could be taken away from an outing.

During his past six starts, however, starting with his June 27 outing against the Boston Red Sox in which Alcantara gave up just one run through seven innings, there have been shades of his former self. He has four quality starts — pitching at least six innings while allowing no more than three earned runs — and a 2.95 ERA overall in that span (13 earned runs over 39 2/3 innings).

“I feel like this has been building for him since Boston,” Stallings said. “He’s done a really good job for us and I think he’s thrown better than his numbers indicate this year. It’s nice that he got a start like this to kind of reinforce that he has been throwing the ball well.”

Eury Perez pitches in Double A

Right-handed pitcher Eury Perez on Wednesday made his first start for Double A Pensacola since being optioned to the minor leagues in order to monitor his innings.

The 20-year-old tossed 2 1/3 innings, giving up two runs (one earned run) on four hits while striking out five. He threw 45 pitches, 30 of which landed for strikes.

Perez has thrown 86 2/3 innings total this season (33 1/3 in seven Double A starts; 53 1/3 in 11 MLB starts). He never threw more than 78 in a season before that. The Marlins envision him playing a role in their playoff pursuit, but need to manage his innings count so that he is available for the stretch run.