Woken from a pregame nap to replace a late scratch, the veteran left-hander bypassed an opener to flirt with a no-hitter.
Martin Pérez has always had a reputation for being the teammate who says yes.
On Saturday night, that reputation turned into one of the most memorable starts of the Atlanta Braves' season.
About an hour before first pitch, Pérez wasn't going through his normal pregame routine. He was taking a nap, expecting to start Sunday. Then pitching coach Jeremy Hefner came looking for him.
With the trade deadline just two days away, he was prepared for the worst.
"I was taking a nap and then I went [to the bathroom], and I hear my pitching coach yelling, 'Martín,' and I was like, 'They traded me,'" Pérez said after the game, according to MLB.com's Mark Bowman. "But then he told me Reynaldo López got something in his knee."
That reaction says a lot about this point on the calendar. Around the trade deadline, an unexpected trip to the manager's office usually sends players' minds in one direction. Instead, Pérez walked into Walt Weiss' office and found out the Braves suddenly needed him to start that night.
His response never really wavered.
"I was not expecting this," Pérez said during his postgame interview on Braves Vision. "But like I told my teammates, they always have my back. And when they asked me if I'm available to pitch, I was like, 'Yes. Give me the ball. I'm gonna do my job.'"
Weiss even offered the possibility of using an opener to buy Pérez a little more time to prepare, but the veteran declined, according to Bowman. Before heading to the bullpen, he made one quick phone call.
"I called my wife about three minutes before I went out there to warm up," Pérez said. "'You've got to come to the game.' She was like, 'Why?' I was like, 'Because I'm pitching tonight.'"
Seven innings later, he had taken a no-hitter into the seventh and delivered what he called "one of the best games of my career."
The performance itself was remarkable. The way Pérez described it afterward made it sound much simpler.
"I was trying to hit my spot," Pérez said. "I think I was using more my sinker and my changeup. I think that combo was great today."
There was no talk about adrenaline taking over or suddenly finding another level because of the circumstances. Instead, Pérez kept returning to the same idea. Trust the plan, trust the defense and trust the people around him.
That mindset also showed up when he was asked about the celebration waiting for him in the dugout.
"When you are a good person and a good teammate, you're gonna get love back from your teammates," Pérez said. "I try to be the same guy every day, no matter what."
Weiss echoed that sentiment afterward.
"He was obviously way off his routine," Weiss told reporters, according to Bowman. "But that was an unbelievable performance. He's an unbelievable teammate, a warrior, all those things."
The Braves needed someone to rescue them from a difficult situation after López's late scratch. Pérez never made it sound like he had done anything extraordinary. He simply answered the phone, grabbed the ball and went to work.
The Braves were able to ride this momentum into Sunday and complete a series sweep of the Nationals, opening up an 8.5-game lead in the NL East.
