Big League dream comes true for Perez
Try to imagine this: You’re 24 and you’ve been grinding to get to the big leagues for seven years, ever since you were signed by the Tigers out of the Dominican Republic when you were 17 years old. You adapted to the new culture, the different food. You learned English. You overcame a series of injuries, most severely a back injury that cut your age-22 season short and kept you out of the competition in your first big-league camp in 2023.
You just kept hitting and hitting and being a smart, aggressive and high-yield base runner. You kept working on your defense, just as the organization kept moving you and trying to find the right positional fit. But you never quit battling
and you put together a strong spring camp this year, finally putting yourself one injury, one phone call away from getting to the big leagues.
But when that phone call came, as it did Monday night, you’re told you will “probably” be called up on Tuesday.
Probably?
You have to wonder how Wenceel Perez could even breathe at that point, just dealing with the anticipation and anxiety.
“They let me know there was a chance,” Perez shrugged. “They told me, like 80%, probably.”
He went to sleep in Iowa City, where he and his Toledo Mud Hens teammates had just finished a series, thinking he might be going to The Show, but not really knowing for sure. Torture.
The Tigers had to wait for one last medical exam on infielder Andy Ibañez, who strained his left hamstring Sunday. They had a plane waiting to fly Ibañez to Pittsburgh if things checked out OK. They did not. Instead, they hustled a flight from Iowa City, connecting through Chicago, to Pittsburgh, for Perez.
Which to Perez was completely worth the stress and fuss.
“It was an unbelievable moment,” he said after he made his debut going 0-for-2 in the Tigers’ 7-4 loss to the Pirates on Monday. “Every