Perez Does What He Does Best

Martin Perez, aside from Yu Darvish, of course, has been the best of the bunch of a shaky group of starting pitchers for the Texas Rangers so far this season.

Perez was projected as the club's No. 2 starter with Derek Holland Matt Harrison both on the shelf to start the season, and while his second outing of the year wasn't anything like Yu Darvish's debut outing on Sunday, it was still pretty dang good.

Perez pitched into the seventh inning before running into some trouble, and he gave up his fair share of hits before that. But as quickly as he was giving up singles, he was killing them with double plays.

Perez induced a staggering five double-play grounders on the night and got twin killings in each of the first three innings to kill Red Sox rallies before they could get started. Turns out, that's what Perez tries to do all the time. On Tuesday, it worked.

"I'm not a power pitcher. I'm a groundball pitcher," Perez told reporters after picking up his first win of the season following a no-decision in his season debut. "When you throw good pitches down in the zone, that's what happens."

You have to love Perez's approach and his postgame interviews, which are always strictly business — not too common for a 23-year-old.

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