Sal Perez’s home run lifts Kansas City Royals over Yankees in series finale at New York

It’s not normal to be able to bounce back from injuries as quickly as the Kansas City Royals’ star catcher Salvador Perez does, nor is it commonplace for a player to be so consistently clutch in pressure-packed moments.

Perez has shown repeatedly that he’s just somehow made differently, yet it doesn’t make it any less awesome when he does ⁠— to steal Royals manager Mike Matheny’s phrasing ⁠— something “amazing,” like he did on Sunday afternoon.

Perez, just activated from the injured list on Friday, strode home plate in the ninth inning with his team trailing by a run with two men on and one out. He’d gone 0 for 4 with three strikeouts in the game, and the pitcher on the mound, New York Yankees All-Star reliever Clay Holmes, has been in the middle of a historically successful season at the back end of his club’s bullpen.

Perez fell behind in the count 1-2 and then crushed a 98-mph sinker over the heart of the plate for no-doubt-about-it three-run homer in the top of the ninth inning turned a one-run deficit into a two-run lead for the Royals.

Perez’s 441-foot blast to straight away center field sent Yankees center fielder Aaron Hicks back a few steps, but then Hicks just stopped and looked up at the projectile missile sailing overhead.

With one game-changing swing, Perez put the Royals on the path to an 8-6 win over the New York Yankees in front of an announced 45,341 in the finale of a four-game set at Yankee Stadium.

The win snapped a five-game losing streak for the Royals (40-62) and kept them from being swept in the series.

“We let the other games go and put everything into this one, with having a couple heartbreakers that you know that you can’t completely forget about ...” Royals manager Mike Matheny said. “We had a couple tough ones. They start to affect anybody. But this team just wants to keep fighting and playing the game hard. It’s impressive.

“Obviously, it’s good to have our catcher back to do what he does. It’s just amazing watching this guy in big situations, how he thrives. It’s just not a coincidence. There’s some people that take advantage of those opportunities and look forward to them and just do the unthinkable when he gets to those spots.”

Perez, who started for the second straight day behind the plate, has now hit two home runs in the three games since returning from thumb surgery.

“I like to compete,” Perez said. “I’m not having the best year, but in a situation like that I’m just trying to do my best. I don’t try to put myself (under) too much pressure. Just relax and swing at some strikes.”

Holmes, who put together a Yankees franchise record for consecutive scoreless appearances earlier this season (surpassing Hall of Famer Mariano Rivera), hadn’t allowed a home run this season.

Holmes has only allowed a run in five of his 45 appearances this season. Only twice has he allowed multiple runs.

“Seriously, he’s one of the best in the game. We’ve got to be honest,” Perez said of Holmes. “But we’re here to compete. I like to compete. I’m going to do my best, I don’t care who is on the mound.

“But really he’s one of the best. He’s got some good stuff, good sinker, good slider. Both sides of the plate for righties, for lefties. He’s good. But this is the big leagues. You make a mistake and somebody is going to get you.”

The late-inning seesaw

The Royals carried a one-run lead into the seventh inning. However, the Yankees, owners of the best record in the majors, scored three runs in the seventh inning to take the lead on an Anthony Rizzo three-run home run.

Reliever Jose Cuas sandwiched a pair of walks around one out before Royals manager Mike Matheny called on Dylan Coleman out of the bullpen. Coleman gave up the three-run homer to Rizzo that put the Royals behind 6-4.

They cut to a one-run game, 6-5, on Hunter Dozier’s solo homer to lead off the eighth inning off another stellar Yankees reliever, Ron Marinaccio.

Dozier’s homer, his 10th of the season, snapped a 19-inning scoreless streak by Marinaccio. The right-hander hadn’t allowed a hit to the previous 56 batters he faced, the third-longest streak in the majors since 1974 according to STATS.

Whit Merrifield walked to start off the ninth, then Bobby Witt Jr. got hit in the hand by a pitch to set the table for Perez’s three-run homer.

Royals reliever Taylor Clarke pitched a scoreless eighth and ninth innings to earn the win.

“That was pretty fun to be a part of,” Clarke said. “We had the lead early. Gave it up. Came back. It was just fun to be part of a good win to hopefully build some momentum on.”

In the ninth, he faced Yankees MVP candidate Aaron Judge with a man on and one out. Judge, who hit four home runs in the first three games of the series including a walk-off in the opener, represented the tying run.

Clarke got Judge to fly out to right fielder MJ Melendez for the second out of the inning.

His focus against Judge?

“Don’t give up a homer,” Clarke said. “I mean, I thought he got it just because anything to right field goes out. But yeah, once I saw Merv coming back in. I was like he’s got it. It was just kind of keep the ball down and away as best as possible.”

After Clarke walked Rizzo with two out to bring the go-ahead run to the plate and a mound visit from pitching coach Cal Eldred, Clarke got Gleyber Torres to lineout to center field to end the game.

“We’ve talked about how good of a season he has had,” Matheny said of Clarke. “One little blip where he was trying to get a couple things fixed mechanically and made some changes. He just has been as good as anybody could expect and better.

“To come in a situation like that, knowing we needed him to go two. He was deep into his pitch count going through the heart of their order that has broke our hearts a couple of times. He gets it done. It was impressive.”

Greinke’s solid outing

Royals starting pitcher Zack Greinke allowed three runs on five hits, including one home run, and two walks in five innings.

All three runs he allowed came in the fifth inning, but Greinke left the game with the Royals clinging to a one-run edge, 4-3.

Greinke gave up a double to Yankees left-handed slugger Matt Carpenter to start the fifth, Carpenter’s second double of the day off Greinke. After a groundout advanced the runner to third, Kyle Higashioka flared a single to right field to get the Yankees into the scoring column.

Then DJ LeMahieu smacked a 1-1 fastball over the middle of the plate into the right field stands for a two-run homer to make it a one-run game.

“They had some good at-bats, Greinke said. “I can think of three hits off the top of my head on middle pitches, the two Carpenter hits and the LeMahieu homer weren’t really that quality.

Greinke bounced back to strike out Judge. After Athony Rizzo’s singled, Royals third baseman Hunter Dozier gloved a smash down the third base line by Gleyber Torres and threw across the diamond to end the inning.

“But I didn’t make a lot of mistakes today. When I did, they hit them good and hit a couple balls pretty hard on quality pitches sometimes too. They didn’t chase a ton, were ready for strikes. Good job by them.”