Nothing routine about it
What did we learn from Eury Perez's return?
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I wrote yesterday about the complicated decision the Marlins faced last month about how to proceed with Eury Perez.
By now, you ought to know the story. The 20-year-old phenom took the majors by storm in May and June but—because of a lack of innings pitched in previous minor league seasons—the club knew he had no chance of taking the ball every 5 days at the big league level for the remainder of the season.
So on July 7, they optioned Eury to Double-A Pensacola for a breather. A couple of weeks of bullpen sessions were followed by 2 abbreviated starts, a total of 108 competitive pitches thrown over 5 2/3 innings in a month in the Southern League.
Yesterday, they brought Eury back to the big leagues. Were we to expect him to just pick up where he had been in early July after throwing 5 2/3 Double-A innings in the span of an entire month?
I wrote pregame about the different ways the club might have handled his situation, what might have been best for both the pitcher and for the team.
One scenario I mentioned, which many in Marlins player development and some on the big league staff would have preferred, was simply letting Eury continue to pitch in the big leagues in July and into August and see how much the organization could safely get out of him before, at some point, shutting him down for the season.
His performance in Cincinnati in his return to the majors last night illustrated why that potentially could have been a better plan of attack.
In a 5-2 loss to the previously struggling Reds, Perez allowed 4 runs on 5 hits and 2 walks in 4 2/3 innings, walking 2, fanning 7 and serving up a pair of home runs in the span of 78 pitches.
Not an abject disaster, but certainly not the type of performance we’d seen from the righthander nearly every time he took the mound during his first 11-start stint with the Marlins.
And I couldn’t help but think about something that sounds so simple but matters so much to many big league ballplayers, pitchers especially.
Baseball players are creatures of habit. They have routines that they execute day after day. Starting pitchers in particular know what they do on each of the 4 days between their starts. Every day they take the mound is exactly the same. The time they wake up. The time they leave for the ballpark. The time they eat. The time they head out to the bullpen to warm up. It’s all choreographed for comfort and confidence.
In May and June, Eury was in a routine. He knew he was pitching every 5th day. He knew what days he’d lift and what days he’d run, when he’d throw his bullpen, when he’d watch video and study scouting reports in advance of his next outing.
He was immersed in the rhythm of the season, and he was rolling.
What if he would have been allowed to remain in that rhythm in Miami, rather than being sent to catch his breath in Pensacola. His life with the Blue Wahoos was anything but a routine. Going 20 days without making a start? No matter what kind of bullpens they have you throwing, you’re taken entirely out of your rhythm.
We all have our routines. We get up at a certain time. We drink our coffee, grab a bite to eat, head to the office. You have your routine at work. Check in with the boss. Monday staff meeting. Trade weekend stories over lunch with Jake from accounting. The monthly birthday celebration in the break room at 2:30 on Tuesday. At the end of the day, you head home, and you could make the drive with your eyes closed because you’ve done it 5 days a week forever.
But imagine one day your alarm clock doesn’t go off. You wake up 40 minutes late, and your entire day is upended. You head downstairs and the coffee maker is broken. By the time you show up at the office, the boss has no time for you. The Monday staff meeting is canceled this week because the marketing team is at a corporate retreat on some lake in Wisconsin. The birthday celebration goes on without a hitch, but they ordered vanilla cupcakes this month instead of your favorite chocolate cake. The horror, the horror. And traffic is a pain in the neck on the way home.
That’s, in part, how I envision Eury’s last month, except maybe with the chocolate cake.
The rhythm is gone.
So when he gets back to the big leagues, it’s another new beginning. Another routine to adjust to.
It sounds simple. But I’m telling you this stuff makes a difference.
I can’t help but think back to Trevor Rogers’ 2021 season. He had the brilliant start. 7-3 with a 1.87 ERA in mid-June. But with his innings mounting, the Marlins backed off late in the first half and after the break. They gave him extra time between starts. He was limited to fewer pitches and fewer innings.
From mid-June through the end of July, he was winless in 6 starts with a 4.13 ERA, up from 1.87 his first 14 times out.
Then, you may recall, he traveled home for several weeks due to some family medical issues. By the time he returned to make 5 September starts, the rhythm was gone, he was a 4- or 5-inning pitcher, and he finished the year winless after June 10.
The rhythm of the season was entirely stripped away in June, and—as good as he’d been to that point—Rogers could never recapture the magic. To this day, while injuries have played a role, Rogers has never since been as good as he was in April, May and the first half of June in 2021.
Hopefully now, once he gets a couple of starts under his belt, Eury Perez can get back into rhythm. The Marlins are considering a 6-man rotation to help extend Perez, but he can adapt to that.
The stuff was good last night. His velocity was there. Perez didn’t throw as many change-ups as he typically does. Could that be because the change is typically a “feel” pitch, and maybe the feel wasn’t where he wanted it having only worked 5 2/3 in the previous month? It’s a pitch he said he was working on during his time in Pensacola, so we’ll see moving forward.
I said it yesterday: There’s no easy solution to how you handle a 20-year-old phenom on an innings count when you’d like to see him help pitch your club into the postseason.
But as we saw last night, taking Perez—or any pitcher—out of his routine for a month and assuming he can just pick up where he left off is a risky proposition.
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Glenn, I predicted he would have difficulties in his first game back due to not being in a routine.
Don't get me wrong. I wish the best for Eury and the Marlins. It's been a rough few weeks for the
team and I believe the players and the coaching staff are doing everything they can to turn this around and I hope they will. It would be interesting to get Jack McKeon's ideas on how he would
go about handling Eury's situation. Jack is a believer that you get a pitcher stronger by pithching
more. He has said a number of times that we are babying todays pitchers today and that is one of
the reaseons why
they are getting injured more than in the past.
Great article Glenn.. You know Glenn they brought up Perez again I can imagine to spark some late magic into this team but the way I see it I think 🤔 were done.. this unfortunately is not the same team that was hungry before the all-star break. I just don't know how that team disappeared and know we are playing just so bad with no passion. What's your assessment Glenn is the team tired or were we just playing out of our league. Thanks 👍