Salvador Perez is just a swing away from tying Kansas City Royals home run record
When Jorge Soler set the Kansas City Royals’ single-season franchise record for home runs two years ago, his friend Salvador Perez watched from the sidelines after having Tommy John surgery on his elbow that wiped out any chance of him playing that year.
Now, Perez has pulled within one swing of matching Soler’s record of 48 home runs in a season. Perez has five games remaining after he smashed his major-league leading 47th home run of the season in a 6-4 win over the Cleveland Indians on Tuesday night at Kauffman Stadium.
“To be honest with you, it’s going to mean a lot,” Perez said of potentially matching or passing Soler’s record. “I know how hard Soler worked. I’ve known Soler for a long time, one of my best friends that I have in this game. It’s going to mean a lot. It’s super exciting. I talked to him the other day to ask him how he was doing. After the conversation he was like, ‘Hey, go get it. OK.’”
Perez and Soler both make their offseason homes in South Florida. They’ve trained together in the offseason. They were teammates from 2017 until this July when the Royals traded Soler to the Atlanta Braves at the MLB deadline.
Soler’s record setting season came after several years of battling injuries and large portions of seasons while showing flashes of his potential. However, he played in all 162 games in 2019 and enjoyed a career year and led the majors in home runs.
Perez offered words of encouragement to Soler during his historic power season of 2019, but he never envisioned himself going after the mark the next full MLB season (MLB played a 60-game pandemic-shortened slate in 2020).
“It’s amazing what he did,” Perez said. “People think it’s kind of easy because he did it. No, it’s not that easy. You guys know that. We are blessed. I’m blessed to be where I am. I always say that. I never hit 30 and I never bring home the RBIs (like this season). To be in the position that I’m in right now, it’s super exciting. The only thing I can say is thank God for the opportunity, for keeping me healthy this year and continue to play.”
Perez also leads the majors in RBIs with 118 through Tuesday night.
He scored three times in the win over the Indians. He walked and scored on Andrew Benintendi’s two-run homer in the first inning.
Then in the fourth inning, Perez hustled his way to a double, tagged up and advanced to third on a fly ball and then tagged and scored on a sacrifice fly by Carlos Santana.
Perez hit his home run in the sixth, which gave the Royals a 4-3 lead at the time. The crowd at Kauffman Stadium kept roaring after Perez went into the dugout until have came back out for a curtain call and tipped his helmet to the fans.
“Those are special,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said. “He’s important to this city. He’s important to these fans. And for him to get an opportunity to acknowledge that and embrace it, that’s something that you don’t see often. But it’s much appreciated. The fans kept making it apparent what they wanted to see, and they wanted to see Salvy.”
Perez said as soon as the game ended he called his mother, who was crying as she watched that moment.
Perez’s 46 homer season has already set the new standard for catchers. He passed Hall of Famer Johnny Bench’s record of 45 home runs, which stood since 1970, the most by any player who’d played at least 75% of his games as a catcher.
Perez became the first catcher since Javy Lopez in 2003 with 40 homers in a season. Lopez hit 43 in 2003.
Perez’s historic season has garnered attention from a lot of baseball fans. A native of Venezuela, he saw fans in the crowd at Kauffman Stadium waving a Venezuela flag.
He said he has received messages from people saying they’re coming to games from all around the region to see him play and, hopefully, hit home runs.
“He deserves it,” Royals shortstop Nicky Lopez said. “The type of season that he’s having, the type of person he is, the type of player he is and how much he means to the Royals, how much he means to the city is crazy. So it’s definitely deserved, for sure.”
This story was originally published September 29, 2021 at 5:24 AM.
