Marlins 8, Cubs 2: Twelve Innings, Pérez in Relief, No Clinch

A starter in the eighth, then six in the 12th

September 22, 2026 - Chicago - Eury Pérez has started 67 big-league games. He had never come in from the bullpen. Manager Clayton McCullough sent him out for the eighth at Wrigley with the score 2-2, and Pérez struck out the side on 14 pitches.

The Miami Marlins beat the Chicago Cubs 8-2 in 12 innings. Partly cloudy. 62 degrees. Wind 13 mph in from center. First pitch 6:40 p.m. Attendance 33,759. The game lasted 4 hours, 10 minutes. Miami had 11 hits. Chicago had seven. The Cubs were one win from a postseason berth. They are still waiting.

"It was way more uncomfortable when it's not your home stadium," Pérez said via interpreter Luis Dorante. "I came from the bullpen and my legs were shaky. The emotions. I didn't want to make a mistake. I wanted to maintain the game tied. At the end of the day, we were able to do it."

Junk for five, Stowers for the 20th

Janson Junk threw five scoreless: two hits, one walk, six strikeouts, 84 pitches. It was his first scoreless start since April 28. Shota Imanaga threw five the other way: four hits, one earned, no walks, seven strikeouts, 91 pitches. For five innings this looked like a 1-0 that would end before midnight.

Kyle Stowers scored the first run in the fourth on Agustín Ramírez's single to center. Stowers hit his 20th to left-center in the sixth. 2-0. Chicago finally scored in the bottom half. Seiya Suzuki doubled. Ian Happ singled him home. Cade Gibson had already let two on with nobody out. 2-1, then 2-2 after the inning finished. Calvin Faucher was charged with a blown save. The game went to extras.

Pete Crow-Armstrong went 2-for-4 with a double, two walks, a steal, and a run. Suzuki went 2-for-6 with a double and a run. Michael Busch went 1-for-4 with two walks. Dansby Swanson went 0-for-5 with four strikeouts. Nico Hoerner went 0-for-3. Chicago had seven hits and two runs in 12 innings. That is a clinch night that never arrived.

Pérez, then a 12th that would not stay 2-2

McCullough had asked Pérez over the weekend about pitching on his in-between-starts day. Sandy Alcantara had already done it last Wednesday in Arizona, a save two days after a 101-pitch start. Junk had done it on August 26. The first plan was the ninth if Miami led or the game was tied. Faucher and Michael Petersen had already pitched, so McCullough moved Pérez up an inning.

Happ swung through a changeup. Hoerner looked at a 100 mph four-seamer. Pedro Ramírez swung through another changeup. Eleven of 14 pitches were strikes. Pérez has a 10.13 ERA and 15 walks in 21 1/3 innings over his last five starts. McCullough wanted this inning in a bottle.

"I hope it's just a reminder for him," McCullough said. "This is how good he is. Yes, it's one inning tonight, but bottle up that, and now you take that over five, six, seven innings."

The 12th was the inning Chicago will replay. Esteury Ruiz scored on Griffin Conine's single after a Marlins challenge overturned a tag. Jakob Marsee singled Conine home. Stowers walked, Marsee scoring. Javier Sanoja singled Heriberto Hernández home. Joe Mack singled Otto Lopez and Stowers home. Six runs. Caleb Thielbar (3-4) took the loss: one inning, two hits, two earned. Josh Ekness (3-4) threw a scoreless 11th for the win.

Stowers finished 2-for-4 with a walk, a double, the homer, three runs, and two RBI. Sanoja went 2-for-5 with a walk and an RBI. Mack went 2-for-3 with two RBI. Lopez went 1-for-5 with a steal and a run. Ruiz went 0-for-6 with four strikeouts and still scored the first run of the 12th. The lineup that had two runs through 11 put six on the board in one extra inning.

77-80, and a clinch that has to wait

Miami is 77-80. Chicago is 87-70. A 12-inning loss does not knock the Cubs out of October. It does send them into Wednesday still looking for the win that would have done it Tuesday. Pérez is scheduled to start Friday against the Braves at loanDepot park. McCullough said this is not a weekly plan. Maybe four times a year. Circumstances first.

Junk, on seeing Pérez in the eighth: "I was pretty shocked by it, but it was cool to see him get three strikeouts right there, get that confidence that he can do that, because it's a totally different mentality going in there at that part of the game."

Pérez, on Alcantara afterward: "He was teasing me after the inning, he was telling me, 'This is our new closer now. You don't have to start any more games.'"

A 2-2 game in the eighth became an 8-2 in the 12th because a starter who had never relieved struck out the side and a 20th homer from Stowers sat in the book long enough for the extras to break. That is the night the Cubs did not clinch.

AthX Engine after the baseball

AthX Engine (our projection and scoring system) put Miami at 17 team fantasy points, tied for second on the slate. Junk had 18 pitching FP. Stowers had 12 hitting FP. Imanaga had 16 pitching FP in a loss. Chicago finished at minus-5.

Fantasy points measure the night under platform scoring rules. Share prices also move with traders through dynamic pricing. They are related. They are not the same number.

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*Sources: ESPN recap and box score, MLB.com Gameday wrap, MLB.com schedule, and AthX Engine scoring. Information only; not financial advice.*