Royals reliever Kelvin Herrera expected to return on Sunday

After playing catch with Royals reliever Kelvin Herrera during batting practice on Saturday, pitching coach Dave Eiland said Herrera should be available for Sunday’s game against the Los Angeles Angels at Kauffman Stadium.

Herrera faced just one batter on Thursday before leaving the game because of a slight flexor strain.

“He’s on the training table and he’s going to go out and throw, so I don’t quite know right now,” manager Ned Yost said before practice. “As soon as he gets done we’ll see where he’s at.”

As another vote of confidence, Yost said he had not developed a back-up plan in case of Herrera’s absence.

“We haven’t even thought about that because that’s not going to be a necessity,” Yost said.

Perez does not show concussion symptoms

Even though catcher Salvador Perez had a lingering headache, Yost said Perez did not have any concussion symptoms after being hit in the head with the bat on Josh Hamilton’s follow-through in the fifth inning Friday.

Perez met with trainer Nick Kenney, who took him through a slew of tests before clearing Perez to continue playing.

“If Nick had seen any symptoms of a concussion, we’d have taken him out,” Yost said. “Nick, who’s extremely thorough, gave him every test, and if Nick feels good about it, then I feel good about it. If he had any questions about it we were going to take him out, but he passed all the tests standing there and had a bit of a headache but got through it fine.”

Perez does have a history of concussions and was placed on the seven-day disabled list after taking a foul tip to the mask in August.

Dyson saw assist coming

The Angels certainly were not expecting Royals center fielder Jarrod Dyson to mow down pinch runner Collin Cowgill at third base in the eighth inning. However, Dyson says that he saw the potential before it happened.

“I anticipated that play in my head,” Dyson said. “I thought I would get a ball hit to me and they would try to tag up and run on me and I was going to gun them down.”

Sure enough, Dyson connected with Mike Moustakas who laid down the tag. Dyson had four outfield assists during the season.

This story was originally published October 4, 2014 at 7:04 PM with the headline "Royals reliever Kelvin Herrera expected to return on Sunday."