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Marlins manager Clayton McCullough was shamed for pulling Eury Perez.
Miami Marlins pitcher Eury Perez pitched seven innings of perfect baseball on Sunday in Sacramento. No A’s hitters reached base with the ace on the mound.
Despite perfection, Perez was removed from the game in the eighth frame. It sparked a negative reaction from fans hoping to witness a rare feat.
Manager Clayton McCollough explained his reasoning after watching the bullpen struggle. Many believe his plan should’ve changed with history on the line.
Pulling a starter after 7 perfect innings at 92 pitches is indefensible. I understand the players are valuable and you must protect them. BUT, they are human beings BEFORE they are your assets. The kid has an opportunity he may never get again. Let him see if he can pull it off.
— Trevor May (@IamTrevorMay) July 6, 2026
Eury Perez was perfect.
The righty did not allow a hit or a walk across seven innings of shutout baseball. He struck out eight hitters on 92 pitches. There were no hiccups.
Only 24 perfect games have been recorded in MLB history. None have been achieved by a Marlins pitcher. A 25th opportunity was up for the taking this weekend. Miami would not allow it to happen.
Eury Perez was pulled after the seventh frame. His pursuit of perfection ended with six outs left to play. McCullough detailed his thought process after a 9-8 win.
“Going into this game, 90 plus a batter was a pitch count that I felt comfortable with him coming back off of the time on the IL and us looking to play beyond the regular season, Eury’s going to be an important part of that,” he said.
“There was a part of my heartstrings pulling at his opportunity to keep on going, but I have to think about Eury, one, and our organization, our team and what’s best moving forward to give us a chance to continue to win games. So made more of a calculated decision with where he was with the pitch count to take him out.”
Perez missed a month of the season with a strained right gracilis in his inner thigh. This was just his third start back from the IL.
The plan was always to get around the 95-pitch mark. Unfortunately, that plan did not account for a perfect game scenario.
Fans and players called the decision out immediately. The optics were poor, especially given the bullpen’s issues that followed.
A’s fans shame Marlins.
Eury Perez was replaced by Lake Bachar in the eighth inning. The reliever proceeded to walk his first batter to surrender the perfect game. The next hitter singled to break up the no-hitter. An RBI double ended the shutout one batter later.
Bachar would later give up a grand slam to turn an 8-0 lead into an 8-5 nail-biter. He did not record an out before being removed from the game.
The bullpen would then allow three runners to cross home plate in the ninth inning. Miami would eventually hold on, 9-8.
The scene in Sacramento mirrored that of King’s Landing from the TV series Game of Thrones.
At the end of Thrones’ fifth season, as punishment for her various crimes… Cersei, the queen mother of the realm, has her hair shorn and is forced to strip naked for a long, painful walk through King’s Landing as she faces her subjects. Behind her, a nun in the Faith Militant walks behind her with a bell, repeating one word over and over again: “Shame.” Ultimately, this humiliating display leaves Cersei broken and battered, as well as determined to seek revenge upon the Faith and its leader, the High Sparrow.
Clayton McCullough was shamed for his ‘crime’ just as Cersei was shamed for hers. In this case, the baseball gods immediately punished the Marlins for their refusal to divert from the plan.
Eury Perez was not given the chance to record a perfect game. For viewers, it was an egregious mismanagement of the situation.