MIA 4, SEA 1: Eury-Ka!

Eury shines in the Pacific Northwest as Fish take series finale from the M's.

After a two-game stretch where the Marlins that had "wow'd" and "awed" were largely absent, Wednesday served as a reminder that that club was still very much here.

Working around a suspect strike zone from home plate umpire Sean Barber, Eury Pérez achieved a career-first. Facing the Seattle Mariners in T-Mobile Park, Pérez, making just his 7th Major League appearance, both pitched in and completed the 6th inning for the first time in his big league career.

Throwing a career-high 93 pitches, Pérez stymied the Seattle offense to the tone of just 2 hits, 1 walk and 6 punchouts in Miami's 4-1 win to take the series finale. Through 7 career starts, the Marlins No. 1 prospect owns a minuscule 1.80 ERA.

All of the support Pérez would need would come at the hands of Seattle ace and former Miami prospect Luis Castillo, who uncharacteristically issued 6 walks in his 5 2/3 innings of work.

After being held scoreless in both the 1st and 2nd innings, the Fish would break through on Castillo's third wild pitch of the season, one that scored center fielder Jonathan Davis. In 408 innings from 2020-22, Castillo uncorked all of just 2 wild pitches, tied for the fewest of any starter in the Majors (min. 300 IP).

Completing the 5th inning with just 79 pitches thrown, the decision could have gone either way as to whether to extend a congratulatory handshake to Pérez or let him go out for the 6th with the team clinging to a 1-0 lead. However, Jorge Soler would provide his starter (and his manager Skip Schumaker) some ease of comfort when he blasted his 20th home run of the season over the center field wall to extend the Miami lead to 2.

Needing just 14 pitches, Pérez retired the side in order to complete the 6th for the first time.

"I turned around after the 5th and saw I was at 79 pitches, and I kept looking at Skip in the dugout to make sure he wasn't going to take me out," said Pérez.

Of note was the effectiveness of Pérez's changeup and slider, which generated 4 and 5 whiffs, respectively.

Following Pérez's lead, Dylan Floro and Tanner Scott each authored scoreless frames of their own in the 7th and 8th.

Miami would tack on runs No. 3 and No. 4 in the top of the 8th—first on a Nick Fortes RBI double (2) and then on a sacrifice fly from the aforementioned Davis.

Things would get dicey in the bottom of the 9th, though. Seattle successfully challenged to turn a force out into a bases-loaded, one-out situation when it appeared that shortstop Joey Wendle had failed to keep his foot on the second base bag.

That brought Eugenio Suárez to the plate, the owner of 231 career home runs who had been victimized earlier in the contest by a great defensive play by the above-mentioned Davis. Closer A.J. Puk threw the veteran third baseman a 2-1 slider a good 2 inches off the outer part of the plate that he hit seemingly destined for a game-tying grand slam.

Enter Seattle antagonist Jesús Sánchez.

Lining up perfectly with the right field wall, Sánchez proceed to jump and nab the would-be home run ball for the second out. Given the context of Miami's last two losses, the fear of a potential sweep at the hands of a struggling Mariners team would have felt somewhat demoralizing following a run of pouncing on sub-.500 teams.

Puk would retire the following batter, Cal Raleigh, who fittingly flew out to Sánchez as well to end the game.

Of Note

• With his 6th inning blast Wednesday, Soler became just the second player in franchise history to reach the 20 home run plateau in their first 65 games of the season, joining Giancarlo Stanton, who hit 24 in 2015. Small, elite company.
• Pérez's 1.80 ERA is the lowest for any Marlins starter in their first 7 starts with the franchise.
• Following his latest 0-for-3 performance, Luis Arraez is now hitless in each of his last 3 contests. Since debuting in 2019, this marks just the 9th such three-game streak in which Arraez has gone without a hit.

Looking Ahead

With no game on the schedule for Thursday, Miami will travel to the Nation's Capital as they prepare for a weekend series against their division rival Washington Nationals.

Upon resuming play Friday, the Marlins will send Sandy Alcantara (2-5, 4.75) to the mound fresh off 7 innings of 1-run ball against the White Sox on 6/10. Washington will counter with Trevor Williams (3-4, 4.11 ERA). First pitch from Nationals Park is slated for 7:05 EST.

Miami Marlins (4) @ Seattle Mariners (1), Win Probability Graph, Baseball-Savant