Marlins phenom Eury Perez is off to historic start and getting better. ‘It blows my mind’
It was the biggest moment of the game for Eury Perez on Tuesday and the 20-year-old starting pitcher took matters into his own hands.
The Miami Marlins were locked in a scoreless tie with the Toronto Blue Jays — they’d eventually go on to lose 2-0 — and the Blue Jays had a runner on third base with one out. Perez knew he needed a strikeout and he dialed up his whole arsenal. He whipped an 86-mph slider past Danny Jansen for one strike on a foul tip. He then went to his changeup and got another strike on another foul tip. Nick Fortes asked him for a fastball to try to put away the catcher and Perez refused. He shook off the sign until his catcher called for another slider and Perez ripped another one past Jansen for a three-pitch strikeout.
The right-handed pitcher got the next batter to ground out and got out of the jam.
“Again,” manager Skip Schumaker said Tuesday, “he’s still 20. What’s it going to look like in like three or four years? It blows my mind.”
An inning later, Perez finished off another gem. The Dominican rookie starter, who only turned 20 in April, fired six scoreless innings and allowed only three hits, with no walks and nine strikeouts. His ERA is down to 1.54 through eight starts and has declined in five straight outings.
In those last five games, Perez has given up just one run in 27 innings. He’s in truly historic company and building an early case for an MLB Rookie of the Year Award.
At 20 years and 66 days, Perez became the youngest player to go at least six innings with nine strikeouts and no walks since four-time All-Star pitcher Dwight Gooden did it during the 1984 MLB season. His seven earned runs through eight starts are the third fewest for a 20-year-old pitcher in the live-ball era, and his 0.33 ERA in his last five starts is the third best ever for a 20-year-old in a five-star span, behind only Gooden and six-time All-Star pitcher Fernando Valenzuela.
“I believe that,” Schumaker said. “You just don’t see this ever at 20 years old. Those are some pretty good names. ... It’s good company to be in.”
He’s getting better just about every start. What’s most amazing is how good he was to start.
Perez’s ERA hasn’t been even at 4.00 at the end of any one of his starts so far in his career. In his worst outing last month, Perez still gave up just three earned runs in 4 1/3 innings. He’s being asked to play a crucial role on a legitimate postseason contender — Miami is currently sitting in the top wild-card spot — and he’s delivering.
“I’m living those expectations right now,” Perez said through an interpreter Tuesday. “I’m very happy I’m here to help the team and win games, and that’s what we’re doing. I think I have to keep doing what I’m doing, same things as I was doing in the minor-league outings and it seems to be the same game.”
Perez’s latest gem, Schumaker said, was “maybe the best start of his career” and Fortes agreed. As good as he was in his first seven starts, Perez never had his full complement of pitches going quite like he did this week.
Perez’s nine strikeouts came on three different pitches — four with the slider, three with the fastball and two with the changeup — and the velocity and horizontal break were both slightly up from his season averages.
The changeup, which is the pitch he has used least frequently so far in his MLB career, was the biggest difference Tuesday. He used it 12 times Tuesday — twice as much as his curveball — and got his first two strikeouts with it.
Despite how infrequently Perez uses it, the changeup has been his best pitch in the small sample size, with a whiff rate of 41.7 percent and a .000 batting average against, and it took him to another level Tuesday.
“This was the first start that he really had that changeup dialed in the whole game,” Fortes said Tuesday. “In the past couple starts, it’s kind of been in and out, but today he had it for the entire game and it really was a difference-maker.
“He had a wipeout slider, as well, and really good fastball command. He had pretty much everything you could ask for tonight.”
This story was originally published June 21, 2023 at 7:55 AM.
