Braves look to secure series win against top prospect Eury Perez

Charlie Morton hasn’t quite rebounded fully to his top-of-the-rotation form this season, but he has been a mostly solid presence for the Braves’ injury-plagued rotation. That has often been enough for the Braves, who boast an incredibly potent offense. They will have to hope that offense can crack what has been a very hard nut early in his career in Eury Perez.

Perez was the Marlins’ top prospect and one of the top prospects in baseball before he got called up in May. With a huge 6’8 220 lb frame, Eury Perez boasts a huge upper 90s fastball with a 99th percentile spin rate, as well as a good slider, curveball, and changeup. He has an impressive 1.34 ERA, although a more realistic 3.04 FIP and 3.83 xFIP. That xFIP sounds pretty manageable for a home run happy Braves’ offense, especially combined with his below average ability to limit hard contact (small sample size caveat). The curveball and slider don’t have particularly impressive movement or spin rates to them, but the fastball has both high end life and velocity to go with a solid changeup. While Perez hasn’t quite been the star that his ERA looks like, he still will present a real challenge for Atlanta’s bats.

Ronald Acuna reached the halfway mark on the homers section of his 40/40 push in the same game that marked halfway through the season for Atlanta on Friday and he already has tallied 37 steals. Meanwhile, Matt Olson (28 homers) trails only Shohei Ohtani for the MLB lead in homers and leads the NL race by four over Pete Alonso.

Game Info

Atlanta Braves vs. Miami Marlins

Saturday, July 1, 2023

4:10 pm EDT

Truist Park, Atlanta, GA

TV: Bankruptcy Sports Southeast

Radio: 680 AM/93.7 FM The Fan, La Mejor 1600/1460/1130 AM

XM Radio: Ch. 181