win another for his magical season with the Marlins

Marlins pitching star Sandy Alcántara picked up yet another accolade for his outstanding 2022 season.

The Dominican right-hander, who won the National League Cy Young Award, was chosen Monday as one of the five starters for the first team in the major leagues.

He linked his name to Alek Manoah of the Toronto Blue Jays, Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Angels and Justin Verlander and Framber Valdez of the Houston Astros.

Alcantara’s selection marks the first time a Miami player has been named to this team since the league introduced that honor in 2019.

The first and second teams were determined by a combination of fan votes and a panel of members of the media, broadcasters, former players, and other officials.

This award rounds off Alcántara’s great season, who became the first Marlins player to win a Cy Young Award and also the first pitcher in the National League to receive it unanimously, since Clayton Kershaw won it with the Dodgers. in 2014.

He was also chosen Pitcher of the Year, according to the voting of Baseball Digest magazine, and the Juan Marichal award was given to the best Dominican baseball player in the Majors.

Alcántara led the Major Leagues in innings pitched (228 and two-thirds) and complete games (six). He pitched at least eight innings in 14 of his starts, the most by any pitcher since 2014.

His 2.28 ERA was the second lowest in the history of the fish (Kevin Brown posted 1.89 in 1996) and in the National League in 2022 (behind the 2.16 of Mexican Julio Urías).

He held opponents to two earned runs or fewer in 25 of his 32 starts.

He had a streak of 13 consecutive starts with at least seven innings pitched before the All-Star break, allowing no more than two earned runs in 12 of them.

Eight of those 13 games were against teams that made the postseason: three against the Mets, two against the Braves, two against the Phillies and one against the Cardinals.

Three of their six complete games also came against playoff teams: the Atlanta Braves (May 22), St. Louis Cardinals (June 29) and Dodgers (August 27).

Alcántara is also the first pitcher in Marlins history to have multiple 200-inning, 200-strikeout seasons and the first in the Majors with those marks in back-to-back seasons, since Verlander, Gerrit Cole and Jacob deGrom did so in 2018 and 2019.