MIAMI — Right-hander Eury Pérez returned from the injured list weeks ahead of schedule to start against the Rangers, anchoring a Marlins rotation that owns the best ERA and record in the Majors as the club reached the season’s halfway point at 42-39.
The victory pushed Miami to a 16-5 record in June and three games above .500 for the first time since the start of play April 10, when the club stood at 8-5. The only better starts to a season in franchise history came during the 1997 (48-33) and 2023 (47-34) campaigns — both of which ended in postseason berths.
“I was just working really, really hard out there on my recovery as much as I could, because I knew that the team needed me,” Pérez said via interpreter Luis Dorante Jr. “As we know, the load the bullpen had was massive. So I will say, all the hard work I was putting in there, and the commitment following through the whole process, because I know the team needed me out here.”
Pérez strained his right gracilis in his inner thigh while warming up between innings of his May 27 start in Toronto, an injury originally projected to sideline him eight weeks. He made just one rehab start, tossing 3 2/3 innings on 51 pitches for Triple-A Jacksonville on Thursday before rejoining the big league club. In his 68-pitch outing against the Rangers, Pérez permitted three hits, including Wyatt Langford’s solo homer in the fourth. His season ERA sits at 4.60, but he has posted a 1.20 ERA over his last three starts.
“You’ve got to continue to smile on the mound, have fun, attack the zone,” Pérez said. “That’s what I’ve been doing, just reminding myself that you have to have fun, and just not adding that extra pressure through the game. If you get runners, you’ve got to try to get out of there. It was a lot of contact today, but sometimes, you’ve got to just let them get outs through soft contact.”
Pérez’s return stabilizes a rotation that leaned heavily on Sandy Alcantara and Max Meyer during his absence, which overlapped with righty Janson Junk (shin) and Robby Snelling (elbow surgery) being sidelined. Manager Clayton McCullough said the club views Pérez as a front-of-the-rotation arm. “What we’re seeing now, we hope, is momentum he continues to take,” McCullough said. “Putting another frontline capable starter in there certainly is going to help. He’s quality, he can go out there and shut down any lineup with the weapons he has. He does help fortify the rotation.”
Catcher Brian Navarreto, making his season debut, picked off Ezequiel Duran to end the second inning and threw out Nicky Lopez trying to steal to close the third. “Being a defensive catcher, do the little things, hitting, help the team win,” Navarreto said. “And of course, just catching. Just be able to help Eury and all the bullpen, and anything I can. Just trying to be me.”
Miami scratched across two runs in Jacob deGrom’s six innings of work. Griffin Conine knocked a game-tying two-out double in the fourth for his first hit since returning from the injured list. Xavier Edwards lined an RBI single in the fifth to give the Marlins the lead, and Otto Lopez added a two-run homer in the eighth. “We’re trying to treat everybody the same,” Lopez said. “This is the big leagues. Everybody’s got some different stuff, and some good stuff. And those big names, to face those guys, we go there to just fight, and we never doubt [ourselves depending on] who’s there. We’re trying to beat them.”
The Marlins have now beaten deGrom, Jacob Misiorowski, Shohei Ohtani, Paul Skenes and Shane McClanahan this season. Miami continues its homestand at loanDepot park with the Rangers through the week.