For 7 innings, Eury Perez did not allow a base runner. Not a hit, not a walk, not an error kept alive by some benevolent official scorer. Against an Athletics lineup playing out this season in Sacramento, the Marlins righty was tracking a perfect game, and by the time he was pulled he'd needed just 92 pitches to get there.
Perez working through the Athletics order, then walking off the mound area after his final out of the 7th.
Then Miami made the call every manager dreads getting second-guessed for: pull the guy chasing history because the pitch count says so. Perez walked off with the perfect game still intact, which meant the bullpen inherited something far more fragile than a lead. It did not survive the transfer.
The reliever who inherited the perfect game takes the mound in the 8th as A's fans behind the plate start chanting.
That's when the crowd in Sacramento turned it into a moment of its own, chanting "SHAME" as the bullpen unraveled the bid almost immediately. It's the kind of chant usually reserved for a home team's own bullpen meltdown, not an opponent's botched history chase, but nothing about the A's playing in Sacramento this year has been normal, so why not razz Miami on the way out too.
Athletics answer back, including a Heim home run, as the Marlins bullpen turns a laugher into an actual ballgame.
The Marlins were still cruising on the scoreboard, but the story of the day was never really about the final score. It was about a starter doing something historic and not getting the chance to finish it himself, and a bullpen making sure nobody ever gets to find out what might've happened if he had.