Promoted closer Chris Perez “popping it pretty good”
TOWER GROVE — The Cardinals’ newest rookie reliever and planned closer of the future, righthander Chris Perez, was getting a lesson in the now of Triple-A baseball during his early throws at the level last season. He had walked himself into trouble or given up a laced hit to some lefty and was facing a dicey situation at the plate.
Dyar Miller, then Memphis’ pitching coach, walked out to the mound to give his reliever a breather and take his pulse. He asked the righthander what he planned to do with the hitter at the plate. Perez’s answer:
“Throw him the (gosh dog) fastball.”
Not a bad strategy.
Perez’s fastball has been known to fire at 98 mph with a natural, sharp sink. It’s just one of what Miller and others have called two legit out pitches, and the prime engine behind him being not only the Cardinals’ best pitching prospect in the organization but also their designated closer of the future.
As the Cardinals decided today what to do to help closer Jason Isringhausen regain his role, Perez has been promoted and is on his way to the major-league bullpen, joining the team for tonight’s game against Tampa Bay. The Cardinals placed Isringhausen on the disabled list with a cut on his right hand, and to make room for Perez on the 40-man roster they shifted Josh Kinney from the 15-day DL to the 60-day DL.
Even before this afternoon’s official announcement there were plenty of indicators that the fireball-throwing Perez was St. Louis bound. Not the least of which was Perez’s performance.
“He’s popping it pretty good,” said Miller, now the Cardinals minor-league pitching coordinator. “He’s real intimidating out there. … Boy, he comes at you. When you’re up there as a hitter, there is a lot of stuff coming at you. He’s got a lot of high-energy coming at you.”
Drafted out of Miami with the 42nd overall in the 2006 draft, Perez has struck out 22 batters in 17 2/3 innings and tallied eight saves this season for the Cardinals’ Triple-A affiliate. (Check is numbers here.) He has struck nearly one of every three batters he’s faced as a pro.
The telling stats this season for the righthanders are simple: 22 Ks, nine walks, 12 hits allowed, 17 2/3 innings. In his first go-round at Triple-A last year, he walked nearly as many batters (13) as he struck out (15), and that was always the concern with his high-velocity, live-wire arm. He had the electricity (77 Ks in 54 2/3 innings last season), but could he command it (41 walks).
Then he came to major-league spring training.
Perez, rated the No. 2 prospect in the list I help write for Baseball America, was one of the select pitchers to join the Cardinals “Classic Mechanics” mini-camp and he was a non-roster invitee to the major-league camp. At each, the coaches fine-tuned his mechanics. It took one turn through live batting practice for pitching coach Dave Duncan to tell Perez to stop throwing out of the windup. There’s no need.
“I think moving to the stretch helped me a lot,” Perez said just after arriving at the clubhouse Friday afternoon. “Working from the stretch has got my mechanics and my release point more consistent.”
It took a few more lessons with Duncan and bullpen coach Marty Mason to make the other improvement on his delivery.
They got him to raise his arm.
Perez loves his slider, and the Cardinals during spring training stressed to him that he could have better success with a curveball. A benefit of throwing the curve was that it forced him to raise his arm slot. That gave him a better angle on the inside of the plate to lefthanded hitters.
During the 2007 season, righthanded hitters batted .115 off Perez. Lefties cliked at a .151 rate. Miller recalls that Perez gave up a couple home runs to lefthanded hitters because “he would just leave that ball over the plate to them.” By getting his arm up and driving down and through his fastball, he’s able to, as Miller said Friday, “really stick that fastball in there to the lefthanded hitters.”
Lefties are batting .130 off him this season. He has nine Ks in 23 AB vs. lefties.
As discussed in an early blog entry, one asset Isringhausen is clearly groping for is his curveball. Duncan said it has been difficult for Isringhausen to get to his “out” pitch because of his struggles to locate as he sets up. The “out” pitch is a key for the closer. Be it Trevor Hoffman’s changeup, Mariano Rivera’s cutter, Eric Gagne’s split, Brad Lidge’s slider or Billy Wagner’s country velocity. Several closers, like Isringhausen, have more than one “out” pitch. Perez profiles with two.
“I would say his velocity is the first thing, just the velocity of his fastball,” Miller said. “He’s got really two above average pitches that he can go to. A lot of closers talk about their ‘out’ pitch, the one the hitter cannot handle or catch up to. That means good velocity, a moving fastball, a curveball or a split. Something that is an ‘out’. Perez really has a combination of two. He’s got the velocity on his fastball and then the ability to go to a breaking ball he’ll throw whenever.”
Exiting spring training, the Cardinals and their minor-league staff discussed sharing the closer duty at Memphis. The idea was to give relievers Jason Motte, Mark Worrell and Perez extended innings of relief — because that would be their responsibility when they got the majors. Why throw a guy only one inning for a save at Class AAA when in the big leagues he’s going to get the fifth and sixth sometimes, or the sixth and seventh other times?
That plan didn’t last long.
Perez quickly pitched his way into a one-inning, traditional-closer role for the Memphis Redbirds, and he’s got eight saves. (He did not throw Thursday night, one of the signs that he’s getting promotion consideration.) He’s performing like a guy who every inning spent in the minors is one he could have contributed to the majors.
“You know, when he came up to us last year (in Memphis), he struggled a little bit, had some difficulties,” Miller said. “I remember going out there to him and saying, ‘Look, what’s your plan here? What pitch are you going to throw?’ He said he’s going to throw that ‘GD’ fastball and get the hitter right there at the plate. He’s got that aggressiveness, that bulldog. … I would say he’s just got that makeup of the closer.”
My phone fritzed a bit as Miller gave that answer, so I had to ask for a clarification. Did he say “BP fastball”? No, Miller repeated, “GD … GD”.
“Only, he used, you know, the words there instead of the abbreviation,” Miller said.
This much is clear: Perez was coming. If it wasn’t now, it was going to be soon.
And he’s bringing that GD Fastball with him.
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Derrick Goold said he was going to Mizzou for capital-J journalism, but after growing up in the Time Zone Baseball Forgot he was really drawn to MU sitting between two major-league cities. Goold joined the Post-Dispatch in 2001 after working for The Times-Picayune and Rocky Mountain News, covering sports from LSU to NHL and every level of baseball in between. 
I’ve got to say, I’m quite excited to see Perez at the big league level. Has there been any indication of how he’ll be used? I know McClellan was thrown right into the fire. Are they that confident in Perez as well?
And hopefully he has a longer and more prolific career than the last closer Perez that came up through the Cardinal system.