Posted by Frank Klose
The official Phillies twitter page just tweeted:
Wow.
When the Phillies called up Perez last week over Mike Zagurski, the usual lefty making the drive down 476, it seemed like a stop-gap measure and that he would hardly pitch. After watching the Carpenter-Matheison-Baez-Herndon part of the bullpen struggle and with left-handed hitters coming up, Manuel reached for his only other option: Juan Perez.
Perez is a journeyman, playing in the organizations of the Boston Red Sox, New York Mets, Pittsburgh Pirates, Atlanta Braves, Los Angeles Dodgers, and finally the Phillies.
Undrafted, Perez was signed by the Boston Red Sox as an international free agent in 1998. In 1999, Perez took Minor League Pitcher of the Year Honors for the Sox.
But, that was about all the success he had as a pitcher. Perez did get called up to the bigs in 2006 and 2007 with the Pittsburgh Pirates. For the Pirates, Perez appeared in seven games over those two seasons. He lost three of them.
For sale at Hall of Fame Memorabilia right now
At AAA Lehigh Valley, Perez was decent, but several other relievers had better numbers than him, including Zagurski, Mathieson, Carpenter, and Schwimer. Perez's ERA was 3.52, but he had three losses.
Between last night and today, someone was so impressed by Perez's performance that he or she updated Perez's Wikipedia page:
Perez pitched an immaculate inning in the 10th inning in a win against the Braves on July 8th, 2011, striking out the side in 9 pitches. Perez received his first career win after Raúl Ibáñez hit a walk-off solo home run in the bottom of the inning.
This could be his signature moment of his career. Or, maybe not. Let's hope there are more.
