Eury quick to find scoreless success by keeping Reds' runners at bay

CINCINNATI -- Eury Pérez is in one of the best stretches of his professional career, with a 1.80 ERA in 10 starts since returning from the injured list in June with an inner right thigh strain. But one of his biggest improvements won’t show up in a traditional box score.

The 23-year-old right-hander fired six scoreless innings in the Marlins’ 7-1 win over the Reds on Sunday afternoon at Great American Ball Park in no small part because of his ability to hold baserunners in check.

Pérez is a dominant force on the mound at 6-foot-8, but his longer limbs often leave him slower to home plate. Indeed, runners have stolen an MLB-high 25 bases on him this season, which tends to make bad innings worse.

Entering Sunday's game, Pérez had allowed seven consecutive attempted basestealers to advance, with his last caught stealing coming on June 30. Baserunners had reached at an 89 percent success rate, too, leading field coordinator Aaron Leanhardt and pitching coach Daniel Moskos to work with him on a quick slide step. Pérez upped his usage significantly last time out, and the Pirates didn't test him at all.

"I had our analysts look into some things," Moskos said. "When Eury is quicker to home plate, is he sacrificing execution, quality of stuff, velocity, in-zone rate, anything? And there was nothing there. I sat down with Eury and showed him that data and showed him that information. He was kind of blown away by it. He just expected, naturally, that when he uses a different delivery that he doesn't use all the time, he would be sacrificing something. So that gave him all the more confidence to hopefully keep deploying the quick step."

The Reds, however, challenged Pérez early, with Elly De La Cruz taking off on the starter's 12th offering of the game after reaching on a leadoff walk. Pérez threw a low curveball, far from ideal to get the speedy shortstop out, but with a smaller leg lift, catcher Brian Navarreto was able to nail him at second.

That sequence was especially gratifying since De La Cruz stole second against him in his second start of the season.

"Once you have De La Cruz on first base, you cannot stop thinking that he's going to try to get that second base," Pérez said through interpreter Luis Dorante Jr. "But I've been working hard on that quick delivery to home plate, and I'm happy that I'm giving my catchers a shot to get that guy at second. We were able to do it today, and I'm very happy."

With the hot, humid weather in Cincinnati -- far different than the conditions in the climate-controlled loanDepot park -- Pérez had trouble getting a good grip on his breaking balls and issued five walks, his highest total since May 6. But Cincinnati only tested him one more time in an ill-fated attempt. Catcher Jose Trevino took off on a 3-2 count with one down in the third, and the Marlins easily threw him out despite Pérez throwing a slider in the dirt and not using a slide step.

Keeping runners on first base is also crucial, considering Pérez made his sinker his most-used pitch for the sixth time in his past seven starts. He didn't garner any double plays on Sunday, but he did pick up six ground-ball outs compared to three air outs.

Being able to shut down the run game is making the third-year starter a more complete pitcher. And, of course, it doesn't hurt that he was routinely pumping four-seamers over 100 mph and racked up multiple swings and misses on all five of his pitches.

"He's got exceptional stuff, and we knew that coming in," Reds manager Terry Francona said. "They've got a couple starters that kind of are on the high end of the league, as far as stuff goes. We did a decent job actually with [driving up] his pitch count. We had just nothing to show for it."