Kansas City Royals are aware they’re witnessing a rare run by Salvador Perez
Kansas City Royals rookie left-hander Daniel Lynch may only have 10 games of major-league experience under his belt, but he’s aware enough to recognize that he’s got an up-close and personal view of something rare.
Royals All-Star catcher Salvador Perez finds ways to extend the most productive season of his career into upper echelons on a daily basis. Saturday, that just meant Perez hit a home run in his fourth consecutive game to help lead the Royals to a 4-2 win over the Seattle Mariners.
Perez also moved into second place among the major-league leaders with 37 homers this season.
“I said it after he hit his homer. I came in and was just like I think we’re witnessing something that’s historic,” Lynch said. “I think this is something that we’ll never forget watching this season.”
Among players who’ve played at least 75% of their games at catcher in a season, only Carlton Fisk in 1985 hit as many home runs in a season as Perez. Perez still has more than a month remaining in the season.
The 37 homers give Perez the third-highest single-season total in franchise history behind former teammate Mike Moustakas’ 38 home runs in 2017 and another former teammate Jorge Soler’s club record of 48 set in 2019.
Perez’s 11 home runs in August are one away from tying Chili Davis’ club record for the month (12).
Perez now has 16 home runs since the MLB All-Star break, only Cincinnati’s Joey Votto has more (17) in that span.
“I’ve been able to see some good players,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said. “He’s up there on the top of that list. There’s very few guys that you can be heading into the last month of the regular season and say that this guy needs to be in the conversation as one of the most valuable players in the league.
“To be able to watch that every day — let alone adding to that demand and the value of what he’s doing defensively. So ball that whole thing up together and it’s an extremely special season that we’re all getting to witness right now.”
Perez, who turned 31 in May, cruised past his previous career high of 27 home runs in a season. He’s also set single-season career marks for RBIs (92) and runs scored (62).
Through 128 games, he has slashed .275/.314/.538.
A seven-time All-Star with three Silver Sluggers already on his résumé, Perez has just started to fully embrace the cat-and-mouse game of game planning for each pitcher and each at-bat in a similar fashion to how he has approached game-calling from behind the plate as a catcher.
Fittingly, Perez made it a point to embrace, in the form of a huge bear hug, hitting coach Terry Bradshaw in the dugout after Perez hit his 37th home run.
Bradshaw, who first coached Perez when both were with Double-A Northwest Arkansas in 2011, has been Perez’s conduit to the data, scouting reports and pitcher tendencies on a daily basis and throughout games.
“He’s one of the best,” Perez said of Bradshaw. “He cares. When people care about you, you try to do the best for them. He cares about everybody. He’s always paying attention to what you do or helping you get some numbers like he might start with a slider here. He’s super smart. When he tells me he’s going to start with a slider, 100 percent I’m seeing a slider. He does a pretty good job and gives us the best information we can have to face that guy that day.”
Perez’s current stretch of home runs in four consecutive games includes grand slams in back-to-back games, something never done in club history before. The four consecutive games with homers is one shy of Mike Sweeney’s franchise record set in 2002.
However, Perez has had a stretch of four consecutive games with a homer previously. He did it from April 6-9, 2017.
Perez acknowledged that the tear he’s on now is different because he approaches his at-bats differently than he has in years past.
It shows in the way he breaks down his at-bats even in his postgame press conferences. He struck out the first time he faced Mariners left-hander Tyler Anderson on Saturday in part because Anderson went against his own tendency and didn’t throw one cutter.
Anderson used a heavy dose of four-seam fastballs and one changeup to keep Perez off-balance in the first at-bat. In Perez’s second at-bat, Anderson threw him back-to-back changeups and then a fastball that got him to fly out with the bases loaded.
But the third time around, in the fifth inning, Anderson tried to catch Perez off-guard with a changeup on the first pitch. Perez clubbed it 367 feet.
“It’s a little bit different,” Perez said. “We’ve got some more information right now too that’s going to help, using iPad, how they’re pitching and all that. There’s a lot of information right before the game. I know maybe during the game you’ve got to change. It depends on how they pitch you.”
This story was originally published August 28, 2021 at 9:31 PM.
