Perl already has the -pi options to edit files line by line, either editing in place or saving a backup file if you use -p -i.bak. Add -a to split each line, same as awk does. if you want to split on a different character other than a space, you can specify it with -F, but you want space splits

perl -pia -e"splice @F, 1, 1 if  $F[1] =~ /[A-Z]\./i or $F[1] eq 'jr.'
+ "
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