Eury Pérez is inching closer to returning to a Major League mound.
In his sixth rehab start on Thursday, Pérez allowed one run in 3 1/3 innings for Triple-A Jacksonville, while striking out seven batters and throwing 37 of 61 pitches for strikes. Pérez averaged 97.6 mph on his four-seamer and produced whiffs on 12 of 28 swings against him.
"I'm working really good with all of my pitches," Pérez said through Jacksonville bench coach and interpreter Jorge Hernandez. "My body feels good. My arm feels good. I considered this a great outing."
After missing all of the 2024 season due to Tommy John surgery, Pérez made his first rehab start for Low-A Jupiter on April 26. Pérez made four more starts with Jupiter before he made his most recent start with Jacksonville. Following his outing, Pérez said the plan is to make two more starts with Jacksonville, which would give him a total of eight rehab starts and a potential early June return to the Majors.
“I think we'd like for him to touch multiple five-ups in Triple-A before coming back here, at least to build that foundation a little bit,” Marlins manager Clayton McCullough said on Monday.
“There might be a bit of a limit on the number of pitches right out of the chute that he is throwing, and we're going to play the long game with Eury. But at least where he does have some built up, where he's gone up five times a couple before he goes back and enters the rotation here.”
Asked about what he'd like to work on in his next rehab starts, Pérez cited being more consistent with his breaking pitches and working in a new pitch -- a sweeper.
Pérez’s return could prove to be a boon to a Marlins rotation that entered Thursday with the third-worst ERA (5.76) and fifth-worst FIP (4.72). As McCullough said, though, the Marlins might not go full bore with Pérez right away and, as we’ve seen with Sandy Alcantara’s own struggles (7.99 ERA in nine starts) upon returning from elbow surgery, there could be an adjustment period.
Pérez was dynamic in his 2023 rookie season, when he posted a 3.15 ERA and struck out 108 batters in 91 1/3 innings, which resulted in a seventh-place finish in NL Rookie of the Year voting.