The countdown: Ranking Salvador Perez's 2021 home runs, part 4
The dingers have cracked the top 30 and we're just about halfway home.
It’s back! After a couple of weeks’ hiatus, the Salvy 2021 countdown returns!
These are getting good and I’m excited for what’s to come. I highly recommend you hit that “subscribe” button if you have somehow resisted the temptation. There are more Perez dingers to come, along with the usual Royals and general baseball nonsense. You know, once the owners decide to stop locking out the players and we have some actual baseball to follow.
Enough of that labor talk. It’s Friday. Let’s swing for the fences.
In case you missed the previous editions, or just want to relieve some slightly less impressive Salvy blasts, here is the countdown so far:
Part One — Home runs 48 through 41
Part Two — Home runs 40 through 36
Part Three — Home runs 35 through 31
#30 — 6/16/21 vs Detroit Tigers
What if I told you I have video evidence of a pitcher trying to get a first-pitch changeup past Salvador Perez. Is that something you’d be interested in?
What a dumb question. Of course you’d want to see that.
One of my favorite things to do is revisit a pitch that was deposited over the wall and look at where the catcher set up versus where the pitch was actually delivered. In this case, Tarik Skubal is supposed to deliver the pitch down. He missed. Badly.
(Hey! Those strike boxes don’t align! Wild!)
If you’re going to miss on a first-pitch cambio to Perez, I’m thinking you don’t want to miss in that location. Check that…I know you don’t want to miss in that location.
#29 — 6/11/21 @ Oakland A’s (2)
Perez’s first dinger of this game was the very first home run in our countdown. His second ranks a bit higher.
That’s just a pure cement mixer…a hanging slider on the first pitch.
This was one of those games where Perez did his absolute darndest in the later innings. The Royals trailed 3-0 entering the seventh. Perez hit his first bomb in that inning, a leadoff laser down the left field line. They added another run in that frame with a Very Royals Rally (a pair of singles and a pair of fielder’s choices) to cut the deficit to a single run.
Perez tied the game with the above. If you’re keeping score with the newsletter, that’s a dinger in back to back innings. How many times in 2021 did Perez carry the offensive load? That’s a rhetorical question because the answer is probably 161 times. Or thereabouts.
Alas, the Royals lost the game in the ninth.
#28 — 8/29/21 @ Seattle Mariners
When the Royals embarked on a ten-game road trip to Chicago for a visit with the Cubs, followed by Houston and Seattle at the end of August, Perez plugged in to some sort of atomic generator. In 42 plate appearances, he raked .324/.405/.973. He finished the trip with 12 hits—four singles and eight home runs. That’s some video game cheat code stuff.
Anyway, this was his parting shot to the good folks in the Pacific Northwest.
I am all about the data. You know this. Since you’re reading this, I’ll assume you are likewise into the numbers. Statcast and their metrics, particularly on the dingers, is just some fun information. It’s also a way to remind us that not all home runs are created equal. Take for example the above. Perez is looking inner half and just obliterates the pitch. We can see that with our own eyes. The 106 mph exit velocity gives us the data to confirm…yes, he did indeed destroy that baseball. But then the distance…369 feet. Really?
Look where this ball hits the foul pole.
That’s actually coming down, after striking the pole.
It’s 331 feet down the left field line at Safeco. The ball hit more than three-quarters of the way up the pole. Scroll back up and rewatch the gif. Notice how the fans in the upper tier of the outfield seats are standing when the camera cuts their way…They're going to catch a Perez dinger. Notice how they sit down when it clangs off the pole…That’s just good times.
369 feet? No way.
#27 — 4/14/21 vs Los Angeles Angels
This may have been the moment that I bought into that what Perez did in 2020 would carry over to 2021.
It’s an early season, chilly afternoon game at The K. The ball doesn’t travel that well, especially from a right-handed batter to that part of the yard. Except for Perez, it did.
And then…
#26 — 9/15/21 vs Oakland A’s
It’s a carbon copy dinger, five months apart.
I published this spray chart a couple entries ago, but it bears dropping in to the countdown once again.
Perez flashed the oppo power more in 2021 than in any season in his career. The fact these two dingers are five months apart in a season where Perez appeared in every game, save one, for the Royals, it’s just amazing consistency for a power hitter. We know how those guys get streaky…we’ve even seen it in this countdown how the home runs can cluster, but for Perez to maintain that opposite field pop through the entire year while serving as the team’s primary catcher is all kinds of impressive.
Impressive remains the best adjective to describe his 2021.
Have a great weekend. Thanks for reading (and subscribing). Talk to you next week.