By Dylan Butler
A week before the season started, pitcher George Perez learned his fate. After a subpar season as a starter in Medicine Hat, Canada with the Toronto Blue Jays Rookie league team, the 21-year-old was told he would move up to the short season Class A Queens Kings. But as a closer.
Perez, who had only been playing baseball for six years, was always a starter and came in for some long relief but never as a closer. He felt slighted.
“In the beginning I felt like they moved me down from being a starter, but afterwards I realized, it's just pitching,” he said. “It's just mental focus and doing the same you used to do (is this correct?) and when you can handle the pressure, there's no problem with that.”
As the season started, Perez felt better about the responsibility and has thrived in the new role. He has a 3-1 record with a paltry 0.93 earned run average in 28.1 innings pitched. Opponents are hitting just .196 off of Perez, who has 28 strikeouts and is third in the New York-Penn League with 10 saves.
“George has done an outstanding job,” said Queens Kings pitching coach Jim Rooney. “He's been nothing short of brilliant. For someone who's never been in this role before, he's stepped in and there's never a question asked. He's always ready to go, he's one of the hardest workers on the team, he's continually looking to improve himself.
“It doesn't seem like stress fazes him one bit,” Rooney said. “He just does his thing.”
After struggling as a starter with Medicine Hat last year, Perez feels rejuvenated as the Kings closer.
“Last year as a starter, I didn't have a very good season,” he said. “But when you know you have some abilities, you just know you have to work in the correct way. You have a good team behind you, you just have to make your pitches, keep the ball in the strike zone and the players behind you will do the rest of the job.”
But it took a while for Perez, who throws a fastball which tops out at 95 mph, a slider, a change-up and a split finger fastball as his out pitch, to get used to the difference between a starter and a closer.
“It's a lot different because as a starter you warm up a different way, you focus yourself on the game like two days before,” Perez said. “When you're a closer, you're just sitting there and waiting and sometimes they catch you by surprise.”
While Perez has found success on the baseball diamond, it's not his favorite sport.
“I like basketball a lot better than baseball because there is more action, more movement,” he said. “But basketball down in the Dominican Republic is not as popular as baseball is, so I just started playing baseball when I was almost finished in high school and three years later I got signed as a free agent.”
Perez, from San Pedro de Macoris, Dominican Republic was signed by the Blue Jays as a free agent in 1997 and spent two years in the Dominican Summer League before playing in Medicine Hat last year. While he is getting acclimated to a new role on the mound, he is also getting used to his new surroundings in New York City.
“This is the biggest city I have ever seen – there are no cities this big in the Dominican Republic,” he said. “We went to one Yankees game and one Mets game and that was fabulous. We took the subway downtown and we were taking pictures of everything to show the family when we get back to show them that we were here.”
