MIAMI — Before they took the field, before another season began, before the Miami Marlins could try once again to show the baseball world that this scrappy young team can be a contender, Clayton McCullough took the time to thank the players and his staff. They put in the work during spring training to make sure the progress they showed at the end of 2025, when a strong finish kept them in the playoff race until the final week, doesn’t fade away.

“Now, it doesn’t stop,” the manager said from the third-base dugout hours before first pitch Friday. “For us to have the type of season that we believe we could potentially have, it’s going to require the group to be all in.”

They got the season started on the right note, with just about everyone contributing in some fashion to Miami’s 2-1 win over the Colorado Rockies in front of an announced crowd of 32,459 at loanDepot park.

It marks the first time the Marlins (1-0) have won on Opening Day in consecutive years since 2004-2005.

“That was a pretty good baseball game,” Marlins closer Pete Fairbanks said. “Someone called it a classic baseball game. You hit enough, you pitch well, you play pretty good defense, and you win baseball games. I mean, I think that’s been a (successful) recipe for as long as the game has been played.”

For the Marlins, it started on the mound.

Ace Sandy Alcantara was efficient, needing just 73 pitches to get through seven innings in his franchise-leading sixth Opening Day start. He held Colorado (0-1) to just one unearned run on four hits and two walks while striking out five.

After facing the minimum through three innings, Alcantara ran into his only real jam of the game in the fourth.

Jake McCarthy led off with a single and stole second before getting thrown out by right fielder Austin Slater while trying to score on a Hunter Goodman single. A Willi Castro fielder’s choice got the second out of the inning before Colorado loaded the bases when Ezequiel Tovar reached on a Javier Sanoja fielding error and TJ Rumfield walked. Jordan Beck’s infield single, which shortstop Otto Lopez made a diving grab on to avoid it going into the outfield, drove in Castro.

Alcantara settled back in after that to cruise through his final three innings. The only blemish in that span was a seventh-inning walk to Beck, who was promptly caught stealing.

Alcantara mixed in all of his pitches, throwing 16 changeups, 16 four-seam fastballs, 12 sweepers (a pitch he is introducing this year), 12 sinkers, nine sliders and eight cutters. He generated 11 whiffs on 38 swings, including six on nine against his changeup.

“Everything was working today,” Alcantara said.

Alcantara was the first Marlins pitcher to throw at least seven innings on Opening Day since Henderson Alvarez III in 2015 and the sixth overall, also joining Josh Beckett in 2004, Ryan Dempster in 2002, Alex Fernandez in 2000 and Kevin Brown in both 1997 and 1996.

“Five ups was the most he had” in spring training, McCullough said. “The pitch count was really low. He was just so efficient. He did a great job of mixing up his looks at first and controlling the running game and things that he’s worked hard on. A great start to the year for Sandy to go that deep in the game, be that efficient as well as be able to execute at the rate he did today.”

Alcantara left the mound with a lead, courtesy of the bottom of Miami’s lineup stringing together hits in the second.

Second baseman Xavier Edwards hit a one-out single to left-center field for the Marlins’ first hit of the game. Rookie Owen Caissie, a late addition to the starting lineup after original first baseman Christopher Morel was scratched with a left oblique strain, then drove in Edwards with a double to left-center. Sanoja, playing third base, then hit an RBI single down the left-field line to give Miami a 2-0 lead.

The contributions didn’t stop there.

The bullpen followed Alcantara with a pair of scoreless innings.

Andrew Nardi, pitching in an MLB game for the first time since Aug. 21, 2024, after dealing with multiple injuries over the past year and a half, struck out two while giving up a single in the eighth before Anthony Bender ended the frame with a strikeout of Castro to strand two.

Pete Fairbanks, Miami’s marquee free agent signing this offseason, earned his first save of the season with a shutout ninth inning.

Catcher Agustin Ramirez, who is working to improve defensively after a shaky rookie season, threw out one of two runners attempting to steal a base and went 2 for 3 challenging pitches behind the plate.

Connor Norby looked like a natural at first base, a position he only took reps at twice during spring training.

“We did enough,” Norby said, “and that’s all that matters. The ‘W’ in the column is all that matters.

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