Here are three things we\u2019ll be keeping an eye on around the baseball world throughout the day today:<\/p>\n
1. P\u00e9rez on a hot streak:<\/p>\n
The Marlins suffered their first series loss in a month when they dropped two of three against the Astros this week, though they avoided a sweep with yesterday\u2019s victory. They\u2019ll send their best starting pitcher to the mound today in hopes of starting a new streak of series wins. Most think of Sandy Alcantara<\/a> or Edward Cabrera<\/a> when thinking of the Miami rotation, but it\u2019s 22-year-old right-hander Eury P\u00e9rez<\/a> who increasingly looks like the staff leader for the Fish. The towering 6\u20198\u2033 righty was regarded as the top pitching prospect in baseball prior to his 2023 debut, and he\u2019s picked up right where he left off after missing 2024 due to Tommy John surgery. P\u00e9rez has roared back with a 2.70 earned run average, 26% strikeout rate and 9.2% walk rate in 50 innings.<\/p>\n That\u2019s impressive in and of itself, but it includes a handful of short and uninspiring performances as he eased back into the league. Over his past six turns, P\u00e9rez has been borderline untouchable. He\u2019s pitched 34 innings and held opponents to four runs (1.06 ERA) on just 15 hits and eight walks with 37 strikeouts. P\u00e9rez squares off against an underperforming Braves lineup that has lost Austin Riley<\/a> and Ronald Acu\u00f1a Jr.<\/a> to the injured list within the past ten days. A win today would get Miami back to .500, but the Marlins are still six back in the Wild Card chase.<\/p>\n 2. Reds push for Wild Card:<\/p>\n The Reds took a step forward in the NL Wild Card this week when they took two of three from the Cubs at Wrigley Field. Chicago is the top Wild Card team, but that series win coincided with a four-game slide in Queens that leaves Cincinnati just three games behind the Mets entering play today. New York is off today, meaning that the Reds have an uncontested opportunity to make up ground as they push towards a potential spot in the postseason. In order to capitalize on that opportunity, however, they\u2019ll need to take down the Pirates during a game started by superstar Paul Skenes<\/a>. The righty has a 2.02 ERA and 2.41 FIP in 138 innings of work this year.<\/p>\n Despite his status as a frontrunner for the NL Cy Young award, Skenes enters today looking to bounce back from a rough start at Coors Field where he surrendered four runs in five innings of work against the Rockies. The Reds will counter with Brady Singer<\/a>, who has a 4.36 ERA in 22 starts but is coming off back-to-back gems against Tampa Bay and Atlanta where he struck out 18 batters in 13 1\/3 innings of one-run ball.<\/p>\n 3. Encarnacion to undergo MRI:<\/p>\n It sounds as though Jerar Encarnacion<\/a>\u2019s stretch of poor injury luck is continuing. Giants manager Bob Melvin told reporters (including Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle<\/a>) that the slugging outfielder will miss some time after suffering a hamstring injury in yesterday\u2019s game. He\u2019s scheduled to undergo an MRI today to determine the severity of the issue. Encarnacion has made it into just ten games this year due to a broken hand, an oblique strain and now this hamstring issue. The 27-year-old made an improbable return to the majors in 2024 after demolishing Mexican League pitching, signing with the Giants and going on a similar tear through Triple-A. He\u2019s belted seven homers in 149 plate appearances since reaching the bigs late last year, though a lack of walks (3.4%) and plenty of strikeouts (27.5%) has left him with an overall .231\/.255\/.420 slash.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Here are three things we\u2019ll be keeping an eye on around the baseball world throughout the day today:…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53249,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82],"class_list":["post-53248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53248\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}