MIAMI — Friday’s pitching matchup between the Marlins’ Sandy Alcantara and Tigers’ Tarik Skubal promised to be something special.

After all, it marked only the second time in Marlins history that a pair of former Cy Young Award winners faced each other in a game, according to Elias Sports Bureau.

The duel didn’t deliver as anticipated — Skubal left in the fourth inning due to tightness in his left side and wasn’t at his best prior to that — but Alcantara shined, and so did the Marlins.

They beat the Tigers 8-2 at loanDepot park Friday for their third consecutive win, the first time they have accomplished that since sweeping the Yankees the first week of August.

“It’s the continued resiliency this group has shown all year,” Marlins manager Clayton McCullough said. “We’ve had periods we’ve been down, whether that be games or stretches of games, and they always seem to pull themselves off the mat and continue to fight. And we’re seeing that again now. … That’s what it takes — you have to pitch well, and offensively do your part to string some wins together, and we’ve done that.”

Alcantara, the 2022 NL Cy Young winner, entered Friday’s start 2-1 with a 2.45 ERA (nine earned runs in 33 innings), 33 strikeouts, and six walks through his previous five outings.

He impressed again, holding the Tigers to two runs (one earned) on four hits across seven innings with eight strikeouts and no walks. He threw 96 pitches, 72 for strikes.

“Everything was great today. Since I was warming up in the bullpen, I felt like I was going to have a great day,” Alcantara said. “You could see what I was doing during the game — getting ahead in the count, striking out people. I feel great about it.”

McCullough described Alcantara’s performance Friday as his “most complete start” of the season.

“Tonight felt like vintage Sandy,” McCullough said. “What we’ve seen the last four, five, six starts from Sandy has been such a 180 from how things started. We’ve seen the command of his pitches and the execution be at the rate that made him great.

“I’ve said it a few times, but this was going to happen. It wasn’t a matter of if, but when. Right now, he certainly feels great about where he is and how he’s performing and will be able to finish off the season on a very strong note, take that into the offseason where it will be much different. … He can take some confidence into next season that what we’ve seen down the stretch is more indicative of Sandy the pitcher than early on coming off the rehab.”

Aside from Riley Greene’s homer to center in the fourth inning, everything went about as well as possible for Alcantara, who worked out of trouble in the seventh after giving up a single and double to start the inning. He struck out the next two batters and, after a passed ball allowed one run to score, got a groundout to end the threat.

Meanwhile, Skubal exited after facing two batters in the fourth. After registering a flyout, he motioned to the Tigers’ dugout and trainers appeared to work on his lower left side. The team later announced he was under evaluation.

Skubal, last year’s 2024 AL Cy Young winner, started the game with a 14-inning scoreless streak, but that quickly ended.

The Marlins’ second batter, Agustín Ramírez, belted a line-drive homer to left, becoming the franchise’s first rookie to reach 20 homers in a season since Justin Bour notched 23 in 2015. His total is the third highest by a catcher in Marlins history behind Josh Willingham’s 26 in 2006 and J.T. Realmuto 21 in 2018.

“Super happy. This is a great joy for me,” Ramírez said via team interpreter Luis Dorante Jr. “That was one of my goals, to be honest. I don’t want to sound selfish or anything, but I think I can do a little bit better.”

Said McCullough: “For us, the best part of this is we believe there’s so much more in there. We believe Gus offensively has so much more room to grow. Twenty might be his floor.”

In the second inning, Heriberto Hernández took Skubal deep to right. The Marlins added another run on a fielder’s choice groundout.

“We were going to come out and be aggressive,” McCullough said. “We felt that was our best shot against (Skubal) — go up there and be ready to hit.”

The Marlins extended their lead to 5-1 in the fourth on Javier Sanoja’s two-run double to left off reliever Rafael Montero, who replaced Skubal.

In the sixth, Joey Wiemer launched a three-run homer 417 feet into the left-field seats off Chris Paddack as the Marlins continued to pour it on.

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