Martín Pérez Shares Important Lesson He Learned From Pedro Martinez

Pedro Martinez sure loves offering guidance to pitchers.

The Boston Red Sox hurlers was one of the guys to help get Nathan Eovaldi back on track, and that’s just the most prominent example. The Hall of Famer periodically appears at Red Sox spring training and offers whatever lessons he can to Boston’s current hurlers.

Last year, Martín Pérez was one of them.

Pérez generally pitches to contact, so he historically has not struggled with handing out walks. But upon getting to know Pérez, Martinez couldn’t help but ask: Why don’t you throw more balls?

“You need to be able to throw quality balls,” Pérez said in an interview with FanGraphs. “I remember when I got here last year, Pedro told me, ‘You have just one problem.’ I was like, ‘What is my problem?’ Nobody had told me this in the seven, eight years that I’d been in the big leagues. He said, ‘You throw too many strikes.’ It was like what (Johan Santana) had said. You need to throw quality balls when you need to throw balls.”

Pérez proceeded to be one of few bright spots on the mound for the Red Sox in 2020. He hasn’t found as much success this season and since has been moved from the rotation to the bullpen.