Marlins to recall Eury Pérez

Just mere hours after the Miami Marlins suffered their third loss in a row, Craig Mish of SportsGrid broke the news that the Miami Marlins have made the decision to recall Eury Pérez from AA-Pensacola. He's expected to start Monday's series opener in Cincinnati.

This season at the big league level, Pérez is sporting a 2.36 ERA, 3.70 FIP, 10.29 K/9 and 2.87 BB/9 in 53.1 IP. He was called up previously on May 10 and made a total of 11 starts before the Marlins sent him down to manage his workload. The 20-year-old had already surpassed his previous career high for innings pitched in a single season. However, he was the best pitcher in their rotation at the time.

The decision to send down Pérez has really hurt the team's 2023 playoff chances. The Marlins have a 7-16 record since optioning him. Edward Cabrera briefly took over the open starting rotation spot, but struggled so much with his control that he's been demoted to AAA-Jacksonville. Most recently on Saturday, the Marlins had to go with a George Soriano-led bullpen game (another loss).

In Pérez's absence, the Marlins bullpen has repeatedly given up late leads, ranking last in the majors in win probability added during that period. Even though that's not directly related to him, having the young phenom back in the rotation would allow guys like Soriano and Bryan Hoeing to focus fully on relief work instead of being stuck in between two different jobs.

Bringing up Pérez is a panic move and goes against what the Marlins originally planned. Craig Mish reported earlier in the week that the team had him on track to possibly return for the Aug. 11-13 series against the Yankees, which would have allowed him one more minor league start to build back up to his regular range of 80-90 pitches. His most recent appearance was on Tuesday against the Biloxi Shuckers where he threw only 63 pitches (3.1 IP).

As much as the Marlins are trying to protect Eury, their handling of him just feels irresponsible to a certain degree. Giving him a midseason break from competitive pitching disrupted his routine, and now he's being rushed back into the rotation with the pressure of turning around a team that's in a free fall.

For the near future, it appears that the Marlins rotation will consist of Pérez, Sandy Alcantara, Jesús Luzardo, Braxton Garrett and Johnny Cueto.

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