Top pitchers Meyer, Perez turn in eye-opening efforts
It was a good week for two of the Marlins’ prized starting pitching prospects, with Max Meyer and Eury Perez each throwing gems in their respective starts.
Meyer on Saturday continued his torrid start to the season for the Triple A Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp. The 23year-old and No. 33 overall prospect in baseball according to MLB Pipeline on Saturday gave up just one run on six hits and one walk with six strikeouts in 6 2/ 3 innings. He threw 92 pitches.
It was his longest outing of his professional baseball career, surpassing the six innings he threw on six different occasions last season while with the Double A Pensacola Blue Wahoos. His previous high this season was 5 2⁄3 innings.
On the season, Meyer has a 1.71 ERA with 33 strikeouts against six walks in 26 innings. Opponents are hitting just .158 against him and he has yet to allow more than two earned runs in any of his starts. The consistency in the results has been there even when he’s had off nights with his command.
Now, he’s showing he can work deep into games.
Perez, meanwhile, might have finally had his breakthrough outing. After three rocky outings to start his Double A career (7.50 ERA, 10 earned runs allowed in 12 innings), the 19-year-old threw five innings of one-hit ball while striking out a career-high 12 hitters on Friday.
It was the type of start the Marlins hope to see consistently from Perez, ranked as the No. 39 overall prospect in baseball.
IS BLEDAY FIGURING THINGS OUT?
The overall numbers still aren’t great at the plate so far this season for the Marlins’ 2019 first-round pick — a .190 batting average and .675 on-base-plus-sluggingmark — but JJ Bleday has started to string together some offensive production with Triple A Jacksonville.
The outfielder, ranked as baseball’s No. 67 overall prospect, has hits in eight of his past 10 games, a stretch that includes a .237 average (9 for 38) with two doubles, two home runs, seven
RBI and eight runs scored.
OTHER NOTABLES
First baseman Lewin Diaz is up to a teamleading 20 RBI for Triple A Jacksonville. He hit an opposite-field home run on Sunday as part of his first three-hit game of the season.
Right-handed pitcher Bryan Hoeing, recently moved up to the No. 30 overall prospect in Miami’s system, dropped his season ERA to 0.35 through four starts for Double A Pensacola after throwing seven shutout innings with eight strikeouts on Sunday.
Infielder Charles LeBlanc, the first player the Marlins acquired in the minor-league portion of the Rule 5 draft this offseason, is hitting .387 with an 1.133 OPS over his first 20 games with Jacksonville. He has six home runs, four doubles, 18 RBI and 12 runs.
After a sluggish start at the plate, first baseman Troy Johnston has reached base safely in each of his past 10 games with Pensacola. Johnston is hitting .314 with a .843 OPS in that span.