Marlins’ Eury Perez to debut as club’s youngest pitcher ever at age 20
MIAMI — At 6-foot-8, Miami Marlins prospect Eury Perez towers above most pitchers.
The right-hander’s mixture of dimension, management and maturity has made him probably the most intriguing prospects in baseball — a prodigy so younger he was an toddler when the Marlins final gained the World Series in 2003, and so good he’s leaping from Double-A to the majors.
Perez will make his main league debut Friday when the Miami hosts Cincinnati. At 20 years, 27 days, he’ll develop into the youngest pitcher within the membership’s historical past and the one MLB participant born after 2002.
“When you’re looking at him, he’s throwing all his pitches for strikes. He’s commanding his pitches,” Marlins common supervisor Kim Ng mentioned, “and so those are the things that you really make sure he can do before he gets here, and he’s shown that.”
Injuries to left-hander Trevor Rogers and right-hander Johnny Cueto made room for Perez, who’s rated by MLB pipeline because the No. 10 total prospect and third-best right-hander. He was known as up from Double-A Pensacola on Wednesday.
“He gave us great confidence in his ability to come up here and do well,” Ng mentioned. “In terms of the rotation, we’re at a spot where Trevor and Johnny are going to be out for a bit and thought it made sense.”
Perez was 4 inches shorter — 6-4 and 175 kilos — when the Marlins signed him for $200,000 out of the Dominican Republic 4 years in the past. By the time Perez made his pandemic-delayed professional debut in 2021, he’d grown to his present peak and placed on 45 kilos.
Perez is 3-1 with a 2.32 ERA and 42 strikeouts over 31 innings for Pensacola. His fastball sits between 94-97 mph and has topped out at 100. It reached 99 mph in final summer season’s Futures sport.
Perez — born on April 15, 2003 — might be Miami’s youngest pitcher because the late Jose Fernandez, who made his 2013 debut at 20 years, 250 days.
“I think we have to temper the expectations a little bit,” supervisor Skip Schumaker mentioned after Miami’s 5-4 win over Arizona. “He’s 20 years old. He’s supposed to be a junior in college, and he’s going to be facing the Reds. So I think we have to just slow down in expectations a little bit. But he’s earned it. It’s not just because we needed somebody. He’s earned this position.”
Schumaker mentioned Perez, who has labored at most six innings in a sport, can have his pitches and innings restricted.
“We’ll monitor it,” Schumaker mentioned. “We’re going to protect him. There’s no doubt about it, but we’re going try to win games, too.”
Miami is second within the NL East at 19-19, together with a 12-0 report in one-run video games, the most effective begin to a season in main league historical past in that class.
GETTING THE NEWS
Sitting within the workplace of Pensacola supervisor Kevin Randel, Perez was notified of his promotion by way of a video from Marlins ace Sandy Alcantara.
“My brother, do you think you’re ready to pitch in the majors?” Alcantara informed Perez in Spanish. “I’m happy for you, an opportunity well deserved. I’ll see you soon.”
BIG NIGHT IN SOUTH FLORIDA
Perez will make his debut on the identical evening the Miami Heat host the New York Knicks with the prospect to shut out their NBA Eastern Conference semifinal collection. The Heat lead 3-2. The Florida Panthers will even play in a possible clincher, up 3-2 towards the Toronto Maple Leafs within the second spherical of the NHL playoffs.
