MIAMI — The Miami Marlins’ latest homestand included 17 shutout innings from Sandy Alcantara, a pair of walk-off wins and a 90-minute, get-it-all-out-on-the-table team meeting. They split a four-game series with one of the worst teams in the majors, swept a three-game set with one of the worst and finished it by beating the Washington Nationals, 7-4, on Thursday to spoil Stephen Strasburg’s long-awaited 2022 debut.
At the end of it, the Marlins are 5 1/2 games back of the second wild-card spot in the National League, hanging around on the fringes of the postseason picture after their best seven-game stretch since April.
It has been a stop-and-start campaign for Miami (25-30) so far. The Marlins’ 15 losses in one-run games are the most in the major leagues and their inability to regularly string together victories — they only now have three winning streaks longer than two games this year — have kept them stuck somewhere between 4-8 games below .500 for all but a few days in the last month.
