After 7 years of perseverance, Big League dream comes true for Wenceel 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. “Everything that you worked for since you were a kid and now your dream comes true. Everything you went through, all the ups and downs, everything you passed, like the injury issues — when you get here and go through all that emotion with your family and friends, it was great.
“I cried a little bit when I was in the airport talking with my family. And then when I got here (to PNC Park) I just smiled. Oh my God, this is so great. Thank God, who put me here first. And thank the Tigers for giving me this opportunity.”
There’s no telling how long Perez will stay up. That will depend on how long it takes for Ibañez to heal. But while he’s here, his job will be to hit. Manager AJ Hinch said he plans to use the switch-hitting Perez off the bench, another matchup tool, and move him around the outfield however it fits the puzzle in any particular game.
He played center field the final two innings Monday.
“The switch-hitting component was really interesting for us,” Hinch said. “He’s performed throughout the minor leagues and his ability to run the bases, the batto-ball skills — that with the switch-hitting, I love having that on the bench.”
Perez’s minor-league statline reads like a growth chart. He’s gotten incrementally better at every level:
• Low A: .318 on-base percentage, .347 slug, .665 OPS
• High A: .333 on-base, .418 slug, .751 OPS
• Double A: .360 on-base, .430 slug, .790 OPS
• Triple A: .376 on-base, .494 slug, .869 OPS
He has been a more dangerous hitter batting lefthanded, so, of course, he hit right-handed in is first two big-league at-bats Monday against left-handed pitchers. The first was against Josh Fleming leading off the seventh inning and Perez lined out to right field.
“It was awesome,” Perez said. “That’s why I come here, to play. I was excited to go battle that at-bat.”
The second at-bat was his official “welcome to the big leagues” moment. The Tigers were down 7-3 and the bases were loaded with two outs. The Pirates had brought in former All-Star lefty closer Aroldis Chapman and he’d punched out Javier Báez for the second out.
Batting against one his boyhood idols and representing the tying run. Heady stuff. But Perez didn’t seem intimidated.
“I was ready,” he said. “That’s the mindset you have to have when you are facing a pitcher like that. Yeah, I just got here, but I’m here. I have the bat and I will be ready to hit.”
He was ready. He took healthy cuts at a 99-mph four-seam fastball and an 89.6-mph splitter, fouling both off. But Chapman won the battle, painting a 101.2mph sinker down and away. The arm-side run Chapman had on the pitch froze Perez.
Asked if he grew up watching Chapman pitch, Perez smiled.
“For sure,” he said. “I pitched him in PlayStation.”
All the anxiety of the previous night, the hectic travel, even the 0-for-2 debut, it was all pinch-me stuff for Perez.
“I feel like, Oh my God, the dream that I had since I was a kid, now it comes true,” he said. “All the emotions. It was like, unbelievable.”