Eury Pérez’s near-perfect start ends early as Athletics break through after 7 perfect innings

Eury Pérez walked into Sunday against the Athletics with a chance to make history, and for seven innings he looked every bit like the author of it. The Miami Marlins right-hander retired each of the first 21 batters he faced and carried a perfect game into the eighth. But Pérez was pulled after those seven perfect innings, and Miami’s chances at both a perfect game and a combined no-hitter slipped away soon after the bullpen change.

According to reports, Pérez was replaced by reliever Lake Bachar to start the eighth. The sequence did not last long. Bachar issued a leadoff walk to Lawrence Butler, snapping the string of perfection and giving Oakland its first baserunner of the day. From there, the Athletics began turning short opportunities into damage, moving quickly from the first broken spell to actual offense.

Oakland’s first hit arrived shortly after the walk, as Joshua Kuroda-Grauer converted a pop-fly situation into a shallow-right single. The Athletics were still chasing the bigger outcome, but the momentum had clearly shifted. The next major swing came moments later when Jonah Heim launched a grand slam off Bachar, a blowout-type hit that changed the game’s math in an instant and narrowed Miami’s lead to 8-5, per accounts of the inning.

Pérez’s workload was also a storyline by itself. He threw 92 pitches before his removal and finished his run of dominance with eight strikeouts while retiring all 21 batters he faced. One of the more notable aspects of the performance was the balance, since the perfect innings did not come solely from one-hit batsmanship or strikeout volume. The bottom line was simpler: nobody reached base while Pérez was on the mound through the seventh.

The historical context made the seventh-inning exit sting for Miami fans. Reports noted that the Marlins have not had a perfect game in the franchise’s 33-year history, so Sunday’s run through seven innings carried rare weight even before the first pitch of the eighth. For the Athletics, the same stretch became an exercise in patience, as Oakland did not just “break up” the no-hitter bid late. It turned the bullpen handoff into a full-throttle offensive inning, including the grand slam that erased any remaining doubt.

What to watch next is how Miami manages the fallout from the inning. The most immediate question is whether Pérez’s exit fits a broader pitch-management plan, particularly given that he had not completed a full game in his major league career, as one report highlighted. For Oakland, the takeaway is straightforward but important, too: once the perfect-game window closed, the Athletics had the discipline to take the first free pass and the power to turn early contact into a big swing.