Eury Pérez flashed dominance with eight strikeouts, but Bailey Ober’s masterful complete-game shutout and a pivotal Twins home run left Miami’s offense silenced in a tense Minneapolis showdown.
Miami Marlins right-handed pitcher Eury Pérez took a step in the right direction on Tuesday. He went six innings allowing three runs on three hits with eight strikeouts.
However, the other pitcher was simply better.
Bailey Ober threw his first career shutout with only two hits allowed to lead the Minnesota Twins (19-23) to a 3-0 victory over the Marlins (19-23) in their series opener. He threw 89 pitches with seven strikeouts and no walks for his fourth win of the season.
Pérez carried a no-hitter into the fifth inning, but left with a loss. Byron Buxton reached on a walk and advanced to third base on a single by Trevor Larnach for the Twins’ first hit of the game. Buxton stole home and Ryan Jeffers hit a two-run home run to left field to put Minnesota up 3-0.
For Pérez, this was a step in the right direction. Before Tuesday, the 23-year-old hurler owned a 6-9 record with a 5.17 ERA (64 ER/111.1 IP) and 117 strikeouts through 25 career away starts. Pérez had been inconsistent in recent outings, coming off his third straight loss on May 6 after giving up five runs and six strikeouts.
Pérez demonstrates a heavy reliance on his four-seam fastball. His 271 fastballs thrown entering Tuesday led the Marlins' pitching staff and is the ninth-highest usage in the Major Leagues. He threw his fastball 61 percent of the time against the Twins on Tuesday.
Trying other pitches led to his downfall. His breaking pitches couldn’t find the strike zone in his fifth inning at-bat against Buxton. His sweeper then found the barrel of Jeffers’ bat for the homer.
“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 during his postgame press conference. “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.”
The Marlins’ only hits came from a single by Jakob Marsee in the second inning and Kyle Stowers in the fourth inning. Both hits came with two outs, with the ensuing third out coming right after.
“Unfortunately, we just weren’t able to do a whole lot tonight to back him up,” McCullough said.
Despite having a 4.94 ERA, Pérez has 53 strikeouts in 47.1 innings through nine starts this season.
“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.”
The Marlins send their best pitcher, Max Meyer (2-0, 2.79 ERA) to even the series against the Twins and Simeon Woods-Richardson (0-5, 6.92 ERA) on Wednesday.
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