SEATTLE -- Not a whole lot good happened for the Marlins on Saturday in a 14-0 loss to the Mariners. But the best news of the day for the club came 3,200 miles from T-Mobile Park, at Roger Dean Chevrolet Stadium in Jupiter, Fla., where Eury P¨¦rez made his first rehab appearance on the long road back from Tommy John surgery.
P¨¦rez threw 19 pitches -- 11 strikes -- in a scoreless inning with Single-A Jupiter against Palm Beach, allowing a hit to the leadoff batter before striking out the next two and getting a popout to end the frame. His fastball topped out at 98.4 mph and he worked in all three of his secondary pitches, getting one swing-and-miss on his slider and another on his curveball.
The 22-year-old right-hander, who was the Marlins¡¯ top prospect when he debuted in 2023 and logged a 3.15 ERA in his rookie season, has been out since the beginning of Spring Training last year, undergoing his procedure on April 8, 2024.
The general timeline for Tommy John recovery is 12-18 months, and when Spring Training began, the Marlins originally projected the righty to return around the All-Star break. But with P¨¦rez already seeing game action just 12 1/2 months after his operation, that ETA could shift up -- and possibly dramatically.
Pitchers are generally allowed a maximum of 30 days to complete rehab assignments, but under the current CBA, there¡¯s an exception for pitchers returning from Tommy John to allow them to get ¡°up to three consecutive 10-day extensions of his rehabilitation assignment, with the approval of the Commissioner¡¯s Office and the [MLB Players] Association.¡±
Even if P¨¦rez receives and uses all three of his possible extensions, he would therefore be due to return by the last week of June at the latest.
¡°I'm glad that we have to figure out how to manage it because it means everything is going right,¡± Marlins president of baseball operations Peter Bendix said, back on March 29. ¡°And it's OK if there are setbacks along the way. We expect that. We have a pretty good understanding of the recovery period from Tommy John. He's hit all the milestones along the way. He looks phenomenal doing it. And we're really, really excited to have him back.¡±
P¨¦rez isn¡¯t the only big leaguer starting a rehab assignment in Jupiter this weekend; Ryan Weathers, who has been out since March 17 with a left flexor muscle strain, is set to start his own with the Hammerheads on Sunday.