Eury Pérez solid, but Miami’s bats go quiet in Tuesday’s series opener

[Kevin Barral]

For the fourth time this season, the Miami Marlins have been shutout, this time by a final score of 3-0 to the Minnesota Twins. Starting pitcher Bailey Ober tossed a "Maddux", tossing a complete game shutout on just 89 pitches. It was Ober's first scoreless outing of the season. He allowed only two hits on the night, with the second coming in the top of the fourth inning. The Marlins fell to four games under .500 at 19-23.

Pérez, who took a no-hitter into the bottom of the fifth, ended his outing after allowing three runs on three hits (including one home run), three walks and eight strikeouts, matching a season-high. His fastball, which he threw 61% of the time, topped out at 99.5 mph and averaged 97.9 mph.

All three runs Pérez surrendered came in the bottom of the fifth. He walked the hot-hitting Byron Buxton, and with two outs, Trevor Larnach singled to right to break up the no-hit bid, advancing Buxton to third.

In an attempt to steal a run, Larnach took off for second base, prompting catcher Joe Mack to throw down. After initially holding at third, Buxton broke for home, and Xavier Edwards’ throw arrived just late, allowing Minnesota to score its first run.

It appeared infield coach Blake Butler, who communicates with video coordinator Austin Lamkey, advised Marlins manager Clayton McCullough not to challenge the play, but the second-year skipper still took the risk.

“If they’re gonna run that, we’ve got a chance there just to play catch, and we did,” McCullough said. “Joe [Mack] made a good throw, Xavier [Edwards] handled it and checked Buxton initially, then worked back the other way. It was really bang-bang. Buxton might’ve just gotten in there. He’s fast, man. Our guys executed it well, and it just came down to a really close play.”

On the third pitch of the next at-bat, catcher Ryan Jeffers hit his sixth home run of the season, taking advantage of a sweeper that landed middle-middle, extending the Twins lead, 3-0.

"Outside of the one spin ball that probably just caught too much of the plate to Jeffers, I thought Eury threw well," Marlins manager Clayton McCullough said. "He went out the next inning after that and really just filled it up again. He should take away a lot of really positive things from this outing again. He stayed composed throughout the evening, he continued, just keep competing and had good stuff. Unfortunately, we just weren't able to do a whole lot tonight to back him up."

Although the final line ended up looking serviceable, Pérez continues to be a frustrating watch. The sequencing of his pitches continue to feature massively heavy fastball usage that makes his breaking balls, like the one he threw to Jeffers, predictable. Pérez also surrendered a total of six hard-hit balls, half of them coming on the fastball.

"The beautiful thing about Eury is that he's so far from being a finished product," McCullough said. "The stuff is tantalizing. He's very eager to learn and get better. He's still such a young pitcher in this league and hopefully nights like tonight for him are things that he can build on."

Pérez's second-most used pitches were the sweeper and changeup, each thrown 11% of the time. Although that would seem like a very low number of breaking pitches to throw compared to a 61% fastball usage, McCullough thought differently.

“I loved how he was using all of his secondary pitches and navigating around some traffic in a couple of innings,” McCullough said. “He was able to threaten hitters much more tonight with his secondary stuff, whether it was the breaking ball or the changeup, which allowed him to not have to rely solely on the heater.”

No stint in the minor leagues is needed, and the fact that he’s just 23 years old allows him to make these kinds of mistakes. But if the Marlins are truly in win-now mode, these issues — primarily his pitch usage — need to be addressed.

In that fifth inning, Joe Mack, who has shied away from using ABS challenges, missed a crucial opportunity in the Buxton at-bat. A fastball to the top of the zone that seems to have just clipped the strike zone ended up being ball four and Mack did not challenge. If that was challenged and overturned, Pérez would've been out of the inning scot-free. The ABS challenge system has been in the minor leagues for a couple of years now, which means Mack has the most experience with that system, which you'd think would mean he should feel confident enough to challenge calls, but that just has not been the case.

Bailey Ober became the first pitcher since Max Fried in 2024, and seventh overall pitcher to throw a Maddux against the Marlins. He also tied Greg Maddux himself for the fewest pitches in a Maddux against the Fish with 89. Ober averaged about nine pitches per inning and struck out seven Marlins, with five of them swinging.

"You have to give Bailey a lot of credit," McCullough said. "He filled up the strike zone at a really high rate and he had us off-balance all night. It was a heck of a game that he pitched and we just weren't able to figure out a way to try to flip the script on him as that game went along."

The Marlins will look to even the series with Minnesota-native Max Meyer taking the mound against the struggling Simeon Woods Richardson at 7:40 pm.

 

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