Here’s how Sal Perez influenced MJ Melendez’s clutch ninth-inning at-bat
Veteran team leader and star Salvador Perez delivered the final blow in the Kansas City Royals 2-1 walk-off win over the Cleveland Guardians, but the fresh-faced, wet-behind-the-ears rookies did a lot of the work setting the table in the ninth inning Wednesday night.
Down by a run and facing one of the most dominant closers in the majors in Guardians right-hander Emmanuel Clase and his cutter that regularly tops 100 mph, the Royals tied the score and turned the game over to Perez with just one out, the bases loaded and a renewed energy in the air at Kauffman Stadium.
Rookie outfielders Kyle Isbel and Drew Waters drew walks to start the inning against a pitcher who had walked just seven batters all season.
After Nicky Lopez’s bunt resulted in a fielder’s choice that left men on first and second, rookie MJ Melendez singled to tie the score.
Then the Guardians chose not to risk pitching to rookie Bobby Witt Jr. with a base open.
Instead, they gave themselves a force out at every base, including home, and tried their luck with Perez. They were decidedly unlucky.
But it was almost all set up by rookies, aside from Lopez’s bunt.
“For them to be able to put together at-bats that they did, they made him work,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said. “We always talk about that. Just pass it on to the next guy. Trust the next guy to get the job done. That was a great job against a very difficult closer.”
Perhaps nothing better illuminated the type of on-the-job learning those rookies were doing than Melendez’s at-bat in the ninth.
Clase walked Isbel and Waters on a total of nine pitches. Then his first two pitches to Lopez, who did not hide his intention to bunt, were also out of the strike zone.
Uncertain how to approach his at-bat, Melendez turned to bench coach Pedro Grifol and Perez in the dugout for advice.
“I was like, ‘Hey, what do you guys think? Should I take the first pitch? He has been a little wild. Or should I go up there ready to swing,” Melendez said of his exchange. “They were like, ‘No. Go up there ready to swing.’ For them to have that confidence in me, helped me be confident going into that at-bat.”
Melendez took a slider way out of the strike zone on the first pitch, but then fouled off a pair of pitches — a 100-mph cutter and a 93-mph slider — in the zone to get to the slider he hit back up the middle for a single.
Perez shook his head when reminded of Melendez’s question about taking pitches in that situation.
“It’s part of the process, he’s going to learn,” Perez said. “When you’ve got a guy in scoring position and you’ve got Clase, how are you going to take one pitch? Maybe it’s the only pitch you’re going to see right in the middle. After that, it’s going to be a cutter at 102 and a strike-to-ball slider at 95. So you’ve got to be aggressive. That’s what I told him.”
Perez sounded a little bit like a proud papa when he smiled and gave his stamp of approval to the way Melendez handled the at-bat. Perez also admitted he laughed when Melendez initially asked the question.
“It’s good,” Perez said. “He learned something today. I was in that place before.”
The Royals feature the second-youngest roster in the majors, and Matheny said he frequently gets asked the question: How do we teach them to win?
In short, Matheny’s response is you teach them to win by winning games like they did on Wednesday night.
“You’ve got to win,” Matheny said. “You’ve got to sense it. You’ve got to feel it. You’ve got to watch veterans come through. You’ve got to watch some of your peers and guys with the same experience as you put up the good at-bats and make the good defensive plays in those close games against good teams. That’s how you begin to set the level of expectation moving forward.”
This story was originally published September 8, 2022 at 1:21 AM.
