Sal Perez scratched from Kansas City Royals lineup Saturday in Chicago. Here’s the deal
For just the second time this season Kansas City Royals All-Star catcher Salvador Perez will not be in the starting lineup when his team takes the field.
Perez, who hit two home runs on Friday before leaving the game with a head injury, had initially been penciled in the lineup at catcher and batting third. The Royals then released an adjusted lineup, with backup catcher Cam Gallagher starting and batting eighth, less than two hours before their game against the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field.
Perez exited Friday’s game after the seventh inning. During the game, he’d been hit on his left index finger by a backswing, hit on the right knee by a ricocheted ball and hit on the helmet by a foul ball that came directly back at him in the sixth inning.
After Friday’s game, Royals manager Mike Matheny said Perez had a headache and a lump on his head and his neck snapped back a little bit on the play in the sixth inning.
“I’m going to change, try to move around a little bit to see how I feel,” Perez said Saturday roughly a half hour after he arrived at the ballpark. “See if [the lump on] my head went down a little bit, see if I can play today. I’m in the lineup, but I want to get a little bit hot and see how I feel.”
The Royals (53-68) are playing in a National League ballpark on Saturday, so there is no designated hitter for the series with the Cubs (54-70).
The only other time Perez hasn’t started a game this season came earlier this month in St. Louis when he was sick and the club asked him to stay at the team hotel due to health and safety protocols.
Perez has played in 120 games with 93 stats at catcher and 27 starts as the designated hitter. He has slashed .276/.310/.524 with a career-high 32 home runs and 80 RBIs.
And he registered his franchise-record fifth multi-homer game Friday.
Perez entered the day with the fourth-most home runs in the majors behind Shohei Ohtani (40), Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (36) and Tatis Jr. (34).
