Luis Perales Strikes Out 12 In Dominant High-A Outing
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At just 21 years old, it is highly unlikely that Luis Perales has completed medical school. The chances are equally minuscule that he’s spent years shadowing experts in the field to learn the finer points of the profession.
And yet the Red Sox righthander spent five innings and 81 spectacular pitches on Tuesday evening putting on a surgical clinic without ever laying a finger on a scalpel.
Instead, Perales used a four-seam fastball, cutter, slider and changeup to quickly and ruthlessly send hitter after hitter back to the bench wishing he’d at least gotten a hit of amnesia beforehand.
By the time his evening was over, Perales had shut down Greensboro on a hit and two walks while racking up a dozen strikeouts and an eye-popping 26 swings and misses.
He used an arsenal led by a fastball that between 97-98 and touched 99 twice and backed with a low-90s cutter and a changeup and slider that darted down and out of the strike zone to garner whiffs from lefties and righties alike.
The 12 strikeouts tied a career high, set last July as a member of the Low-A Salem staff. It also bumped his season total to 46—against just 10 walks—in 26.1 innings, and the whiff total was the highest in the minors for the evening.
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After a Charles McAdoo walk to lead off the second inning, Perales needed just 13 pitches—and seven whiffs—to strike out the next three hitters. He fanned two of three hitters in the third inning, then three more in the fourth, then all three he faced in the fifth.
The only true blemishes on Perales’ card were a hanging changeup that Termarr Johnson served down the left-field line for a double and a four-pitch walk to Jack Brannigan with one out in the fourth inning which prompted a quick visit to the mound from catcher Ronald Rosario.
Perales responded by striking out the next two hitters on eight pitches.
Perhaps the scariest part of the evening is that Perales still has plenty of room for improvement.
His fastball command wasn’t always the sharpest, but throwing the pitch in the upper 90s tends to create some margin for error. He lands a bit open, too, and he was clearly working for the better part of the evening on establishing his offspeed pitches for called strikes early in counts.
Otherwise, Perales spent Tuesday authoring one of the most masterful outings in the 2024 minor leagues and showing the 3,500 fans on hand just how easily he can crush a Grasshopper.
