Arlington, Texas — Texas Rangers left-handed pitcher Martín Pérez has been voted as the American League Pitcher of the Month for May. The announcement was made by Major League Baseball this afternoon. It is the first such honor of Pérez’s career. He was previously announced as a unanimous selection for Rangers May Player of the Month on Wednesday.

Pérez is the first Texas pitcher to win the A.L.’s monthly honor in nearly 10 years, as the last to do it was Matt Harrison in June 2012. He is also just the third member of the Rangers staff to win the pitching honor in the last 24 seasons (1999-2022). Since Rick Helling won in September 1998, the only other Rangers to take the award were Kenny Rogers in May 2005 and Harrison in June 2012. This marks just the sixth monthly honor for a Texas pitcher in the last 38 years beginning 1985, joining Bobby Witt (July 1990), Rogers (May 1995 and May 2005), Helling (Sept. 1998), and Harrison (June 2012).

Pérez went 4-0 with a 0.64 ERA (3 ER/42.1 IP) in his 6 starts last month, as the Rangers won each of his 6 outings. It was the lowest ERA by any A.L. pitcher in a month with 40.0-or-more innings since Minnesota's Johan Santana had a 0.45 ERA in September 2004. It was the 2nd-lowest ERA in club history for any month by a Texas pitcher with 5-or-more starts, bettered by only Yovani Gallardo in June 2015 (0.54). Since the start of 2017, only two other MLB starters have posted an ERA as low as 0.64 in a month with at least 5 starts: Mets' Jacob deGrom in April 2021 (0.51) and Dodgers' Hyun Jin Ryu in both May 2019 (0.59) and June 2019 (0.55). 

Opposing batters slashed .195/.241/.235/.475 (29-149) against Pérez in May, the lowest opponent OPS allowed by a Texas pitcher over a single month (min. 40.0 IP) since Roger Pavlik in September of 1995 (.474). Pérez is the first MLB pitcher to allow zero home runs in a month in which he pitched at least 40.0 innings since the Dodgers’ Hyun Jin Ryu in May of 2019 (45.2 IP), and the first A.L. pitcher to do so since Boston’s Clay Buchholz in June of 2015 (40.2 IP).

Pérez currently has the lowest ERA in MLB this season at 1.42. He also ranks among A.L. leaders in opponent batting average (5th, .200), innings (5th, 63.1), and WHIP (7th, 0.93). Over his last 8 starts, Pérez is undefeated with 6.0-or-more innings in each outing while allowing no home runs and one-or-zero earned runs in each game. According to STATS LLC, the only other pitchers to compile those statistics over an 8-start span since earned runs became an official statistic in 1913 are Hall of Famers Walter Johnson (1913-14) and Bob Gibson (1968).