Salvador Perez – The Backstop Cometh

Salvador Perez is catching for the second day in a row for the Omaha Storm Chasers and that, my friends, is very good news indeed.

Though most of you know, here’s a quick recap on Perez’s brief stint in the majors last season:

Small sample size, it’s true, but quite surprising to most fans who was ready for a young catcher who was supposed to be a reputable defender but someone who would probably take some time to adjust to big-league pitching. That wasn’t the case and Sal left Royals fans salivating for a chance to watch him over the course of an entire season. Then this happened right after this happened and everyone got sad.

A questionable deal for stop-gap Humberto Quintero was made and since the beginning of the season, he and Brayan Pena have split time at the catcher’s position. I like Brayan Pena’s attitude and Quintero had some timely hits at the beginning of the season, but overall, they haven’t really been successful. Going into Sunday’s games, they’d combined for the following this season:

I’m not saying that Salvador Perez will continue on the same pace he maintained for that brief time period last year. He had a BABIP of .362, which is a bit high. He would have and probably will come back to earth somewhat, but the fact that he showed flashes of offensive skill after he had been brought up primarily on his defensive projections, gets me really excited to get a look at him as he makes his way back to the Bigs in the next week or so.

Maybe Perez will become another bat in the line-up to jump-start this offense. It’s not like we couldn’t use a little bit of good news about someone coming OFF the D.L. as opposed to going ON it.

Let’s get our backstop back up here.

We miss you, Salvy.