Martin Perez is one of the top pitching prospects in all of baseball despite his struggles this season, and it was a bit of a shock to everyone when the Texas Rangers called upon Justin Grimm to make a spot start from Double-A Frisco instead of Perez or Triple-A teammate Neil Ramirez (who was recently demoted to Frisco).
That apparent snub by the Rangers apparently lit a fire under Perez, who has turned in his two best outings of the year in his two previous starts, including his last one which was his first pro complete game. Now, he's getting called up and will be in a Rangers uniform for Tuesday night's game against the Detroit Tigers.
Perez is 5-5 with a 4.59 ERA in 15 starts at Round Rock this season after entering the year with possibly more hype than any previous Rangers pitching prospect, putting the DVD trio out of memory. His past two starts have been what many were hoping to see.
Perez's role is still in question, but this will almost certainly be a stop-gap move to help ease the Rangers' bullpen which has been overworked over the past few days, especially Mark Lowe and Michael Kirkman.
Perez could also possibly make a start tonight or Wednesday and push everyone back a day to allow the club to send Grimm back to Frisco after he was shelled on Monday night as well as give Matt Harrison an extra day to rest his apparently ailing back.
One interesting thing there is that The Dallas Morning News' Evan Grant asked manager Ron Washington after Monday night's game why Scott Feldman warmed up in the first inning only to sit back down and be replaced in the long role by Kirkman. Washington replied by saying they decided to save Feldman, "in case we need him tomorrow [Tuesday]." It just seemed odd Washington would say that if Yu Darvish was set to start on Tuesday, which he is.
The most likely scenario is that Perez just gives the Rangers another guy capable of throwing multiple innings out of the pen, coupled with Scott Feldman. Whatever happens, the major-league stint of Perez will likely not last very long as he clearly needs more innings at the minor-league level. But it'll be interesting to see him on the mound in Arlington.
