Top Marlins prospect Eury Perez: First spring training outing ‘a good learning experience’

Eury Perez, the Miami Marlins’ ballyhooed 19-year-old right-handed pitcher, quickly showed in his Grapefruit League debut Sunday why he is among MLB’s most highly touted prospects.

For two innings in the Marlins’ 8-2 spring training loss to the St. Louis Cardinals, Perez showcased a fastball that touched 99.6 mph, a changeup that has swing-and-miss potential and an ability to shake off the nerves that come with facing established big-league talent for the first time at such a young age.

Perez finished his outing allowing one run on four hits, striking out one and not issuing a walk. He threw 41 pitches, 29 of which landed for strikes.

“It was a good learning experience today,” Perez said.

And the outing was a reminder that, as is expected with most 19-year-olds, there is still room to grow as he works toward making his MLB debut that will likely come sooner than later.

Perez, a consensus top-15 prospect in all of baseball, obviously has the pure talent to succeed. His pitch arsenal is similar to that of Marlins ace Sandy Alcantara, with whom Perez trained for a large portion of the offseason. He has two fastballs, a changeup, a slider and a curveball in his repertoire.

“The only difference,” Alcantara said, “is I’m 27 and he’s 19 years old.”

That’s a key difference, though. The Marlins and Perez both know that pure talent only gets a player so far in the big leagues. Now, it’s a matter of executing and not letting the game speed up on him.

For Perez’s part, he showed that in spurts on Sunday.

His jammed Juan Yepez with his first pitch, a 98 mph four-seam fastball, that resulted in a quick pop out to second baseman Luis Arraez. Perez then got Nolan Arenado to ground out to third baseman Jean Segura to cap a three-pitch at-bat. Perez worked around a pair of two-out singles — a line drive from Nolan Gorman on a knee-high changeup and a Jordan Walker infield single —plus a balk by striking out Alec Burleson on a 91 mph changeup.

Perez gave up a pair of doubles in the fourth — Jose Fermin sent an elevated first-pitch curveball to left field and scored on a two-out double from Tyler O’Neill on a middle-in slider at the end of a six-pitch at-bat — before getting Yepez to once again pop out to end his outing.

“He showed he can compete,” Marlins manager Skip Schumaker said. “When you go out there your first time, you’re unsure if you can do this or not. You think you can do it until you go out there and there’s fans and you’re facing Nolan Arenado and some big boys out there. I think it’s good competition. Now he just understands that there’s still work to do.”

Of Perez’s 45 pitches, he threw 16 four-seam fastballs, 10 sliders, eight changeups, five sinkers and two curveballs. He had just three swings-and-misses on 25 swings by Cardinals hitters — with all three whiffs coming on the changeup.

Sequencing his pitches will be one of the next big steps in Perez’s development. That wasn’t much of a focal point on Sunday, catcher Jacob Stallings said. The reason is two-fold. First, it was Perez’s first outing. Stallings didn’t want to much too much pressure on Perez and throw too much information at him at once. Second, it was Stallings’ first time catching Perez in any setting, so Stallings was letting Perez throw what he was comfortable for the first outing.

Perez’s game — and game planning — will continue to evolve over the course of spring and beyond.

“That’s part of learning,” Stallings said. “He probably got into a couple of patterns there. ... He’s a young guy. He’ll get there.”

And the Marlins aren’t going to rush him to get there. Yes, Perez has impressed and is coming off a strong 2022 season in Double A, but Schumaker has said multiple times during spring training that there are multiple boxes for a prospect to check off before the organization decides if he is ready for the big leagues. Perez’s development on the mound — and his preparation in the days between games — will be closely monitored.

Alcantara is continuing to be a guiding force for Perez, too. The Marlins’ ace was in Perez’s situation not too long ago — a top prospect with massive expectations.

The main advice Alcantara remembers receiving from those days: Don’t be late, work hard, be patient and, most importantly, beleive in yourself.

“If I did it, they can do it,” Alcantara said. “There’s nothing impossible in this life.”

Perez understands that. Now, it’s back to preparation for his next outing.

“All I have to do,” Perez said, “is continue working hard and do my best.”

This and that

▪ Jazz Chisholm Jr. played his first game in center field on Sunday. Only one ball came his way: A broken bat fly ball from Arenado that ended up dropping shallower in left-center field than Chisholm anticipated. It fell for a single.

▪ Johnny Cueto gave up five runs on five hits — including a towering three-run home run by Walker — in the first inning Sunday before rebounding for a perfect second inning. Two of the hits came from defensive miscues — Chisholm’s read on Arenado’s fly ball and a Nolan Gorman groundball that skipped past Luis Arraez’s glove for a two-run single.