This story was excerpted from Alex Stumpf’s Pirates Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
PITTSBURGH -- Mitch Keller was almost untouchable Monday night. The Pirates’ ace had just tossed his second career complete game and had held the Angels to only one run in easily his most dominant performance of the season.
But after missing the barrel of the Halos' bats all night, Keller finally got drilled postgame -- albeit by a cooler full of Powerade and sunflower seeds. He may not have pitched Monday, but Martín Pérez enjoyed the last laugh of the night.
"It was cold,” said Keller after he got the chance to dry off. “The only time I've ever had that was Cutch [Andrew McCutchen] last year. He dumped two water bottles on me, so it seemed like forever when it was coming down.”
Pérez has become the bringer of the postgame Powerade shower. Bailey Falter was bathed after a seven-inning gem on April 23, and Rowdy Tellez got drenched on Sunday as well. It’s getting to the point that if a player is doing a postgame interview on the field, they may as well assume they are in a splash zone.
“I’m enjoying what I’m doing, man,” said Pérez, grinning. “Trying to make sure they feel good.”
That’s been Pérez’s MO this season. The Pirates targeted him as a free agent this offseason for two primary reasons. The first was that they thought he could be a solid contributor on the field: He certainly has been so far. After losing his rotation spot with the Rangers at the Trade Deadline a year ago, Pérez came to Spring Training motivated to prove that he still could be a starter, and he’s recorded a 3.15 ERA through seven starts with his new club.
The second was that the Pirates thought Pérez could be a leader for this young team. Again, he’s been a perfect fit -- not just because he is dumping sports drinks on his teammates, but because of the relationships he’s built with them. On days he doesn’t start, Pérez is rarely at his locker, instead talking with others about their routine, their mindset and their stuff, or just how they’re doing overall.
“He’s an example to follow, as a player and as a person,” said Edward Olivares, via interpreter and coach Stephen Morales. “Keeping us on our toes, that’s big for us.”
“It’s not like I’m trying to be a leader,” Pérez explained. “It’s trying to give the game what a lot of guys in the past gave to me.”
Talking about those past lessons, what stood out to Pérez was how serious everything felt when he broke through to the Majors with the Rangers in 2012. He’s thankful for those experiences because they helped make him the ballplayer and the person he is today, but there were aspects that didn’t sit well with him. For example, fines in a clubhouse’s kangaroo court harken back to older generations of baseball culture, but it can be a bit alienating for a young player on the wrong end of the court’s ruling.
Pérez wanted to make sure that if he got a chance to be a veteran someday, he would be the type of player everyone felt they could go to for advice or to see a friendly face. The Pirates have the fourth-youngest pitching staff in the Major Leagues, but Pérez doesn’t want the rookies to feel any different than the veterans.
“We’re all the same. It doesn’t matter if you have one day in the big leagues or 20 years,” Pérez said. “We play for the same goal. That’s what I want. I want my teammates and the young guys to feel good. The most important thing for me is I want them to enjoy this level.”
It can be a bit harder to enjoy the game when the team isn’t playing its best ball. While the Pirates’ rotation has been one of the best in the National League (fourth with a 3.55 ERA), the offense has lagged behind (28th in MLB with a .634 OPS), wasting more of those quality starts than any team would want. Pérez doesn’t want his pitchers to put their heads down through this stretch -- metaphorically or literally. He wants to see positive body language from the group and manifest that change.
“Good games are coming for us,” Pérez said. “I think when we all stay on the same page, good things are going to happen. … I want to be a part of this, man, because I believe we’re going to do special things.”