Sal Perez joins rare group of KC Royals sluggers, but he’s more interested in winning

Salvador Perez was gracious when informed by a reporter he’d reached a bit of a career milestone by hitting 20 home runs for the sixth time in his major-league career, but the Kansas City Royals catcher wasn’t in the mood for reveling in his personal accomplishments.

Perez drove in the Royals’ only run in a 4-1 loss to the Cleveland Guardians at Kauffman Stadium on Tuesday night. Guardians pitcher Shane Bieber held the Royals to four hits and tossed eight innings.

“That’s pretty good, you know,” Perez said of reaching 20 home runs for the sixth time. “But if we lost, I don’t think it means anything. We’re here to win and not lose. So yeah, I hit a homer. We lose, then it doesn’t mean anything.”

Perez’s fourth-inning home run, a 376-foot launch into the home bullpen behind the right field fence, gave him 20 this season and tied him with rookie shortstop/third baseman Bobby Witt Jr. for the team lead.

It also tied Perez with Royals Hall of Famer Mike Sweeney for the second-most seasons of at least 20 home runs in franchise history. George Brett’s eight seasons of 20 homers or more are the most by a Royals player.

Perez did crack a brief smile when he learned he’d tied Sweeney, who works in the organization as a special assistant to the baseball operations department.

“He’s a great guy, amigo,” Perez said. “We’ll see, hopefully I can do it next year too.”

Perez also threw out a runner attempting to steal Tuesday night, the second game in a row he threw out the only runner that attempted to run on him.

“We’ve seen him throw two absolute strikes to second base on steals that could take down an inning,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said of Perez. “He’s in a good place right now. He’s taking good at-bats. He’s doing a nice job behind the plate.”

Perez hit 20 homers or more in 2015 (21), 2016 (22), 2017 (27), 2018 (27), and 2021 (48).

He missed the entire 2019 season after he had Tommy John surgery on his throwing elbow. Then he hit 11 home runs in 37 games during the pandemic-shortened season and earned his third AL Silver Slugger Award. He added a fourth in 2021.

Last season, Perez turned in one of the most prolific offensive seasons for a catcher in MLB history. He led the majors in RBIs (121) and tied for the lead in home runs (48). He became the sixth player in the last 30 years to lead the majors in both home runs and RBIs.

Perez tied the Royals single-season home run record set by Jorge Soler in 2019. Perez’s 48 homers were the most in a season for a primary catcher (at least 75% of games played at catcher) in major-league history. He surpassed the previous record of 45 set by National Baseball Hall of Famer Johnny Bench in 1970.

By leading the majors in both home runs and RBIs, Perez became just the second primary catcher to lead in both, the other having been Bench in 1970 and 1972. Perez finished seventh in the AL MVP voting last year.

“When you start looking at those premium positions — middle infielders, especially, a rookie — and a catcher too with the beating that we know that he takes and how physically demanding the game is on him, (it’s big),” Matheny said. “... I know that’s not a big number for him because of what we saw him do last year, but that’s a big number for anybody — let alone a catcher. He just keeps getting better. He stays healthy and it’s hard to put a limit on what he can do.”