Padres Pitch Around Rose to Get to Perez and Pay for It

Perhaps Padre manager Dick Williams wanted to put some pressure on the younger player. After all, Tony Perez is only 43.

Understandably, Williams was more comfortable having his relief pitcher throw to a guy with only 2,663 career hits.

We’re talking about Williams’ decision to have Gene Walter walk Pete Rose, 44, who has 4,172 career hits, with two outs and Ron Oester on third in the 10th inning of Thursday’s game against Cincinnati.

Max Venable was scheduled to bat after Rose, but Williams said he knew Rose the manager would use Perez to pinch-hit for Venable. He was right.

Right-hander Roy Lee Jackson was brought in the game to face Perez. On Jackson’s second pitch, Perez lined a single up the the middle that eventually gave the Reds a 5-4 victory.

Williams said there was no way he was going to let Rose bat with the game at stake. And Rose, who needs 20 hits to break Ty Cobb’s all-time record of 4,191 hits, agreed with that decision.

“Dick did everything he was supposed to do,” Rose said. “Instead of facing a guy with 4,000 hits, he’s facing a guy with almost 3,000 hits.

Rose, who was 0 for 3 with a walk, said he expected to be walked. But, as a player-manager, Rose at least had the chance to decide who would hit after him.

Perez said he expected Rose use him. He also said he expected Williams to bring in a right-hander to face him. It didn’t phase the veteran hitter, who was batting .339 in 124 at-bats.

Even though he was only 2 for 14 as a pinch-hitter this season, Perez said he wasn’t the slightest bit concerned.

“Now, I know how to pinch-hit,” he said. “Early in the year last year, it was still hard for me to pinch-hit because I was used to playing regularly. But, by the end of last year, it came together.”

He said the key is loosening up.

As early as the fifth inning, Perez goes to the tunnel to start getting limber. That’s an art he learned when he was a designated hitter for the Boston Red Sox from 1980-82. He has perfected it in his role as a part-time player with the Reds.

“In the seventh, eighth, and ninth innings,” Perez said, “I get ready as soon as I see a left-hander get up in the other team’s bullpen. I don’t like the quick call. That’s tough for me at my age. But now, every time they call on me, I’m ready.”

With a man in scoring position and two out, Perez said he was just trying to hit the ball up the middle for a base hit. Perez’s hit was the first in a succession of successful 10th-inning moves by Rose, the manager. With runners on first and second and no outs in the bottom of the inning, Rose brought in right-hander Tom Hume to face the right-hand hitting Steve Garvey.

Would Garvey bunt? Not on the first pitch, which was a ball. Not on the second pitch, which was fouled off on a full swing.

“I just look for the signs,” Garvey said diplomatically. “Whatever the signs are, I try to execute them.”

He got the bunt sign before the third pitch, and bunted a high pitch foul. On the next pitch, he grounded into a double play.

Then, Rose brought in left-hander Joe Price, the fifth Red pitcher of the game, to face Terry Kennedy. Price got Kennedy to strike out swinging to end the game.

Another sweet win for Rose, the player-manager.

“As a manager,” Rose said, “you wait for the key situations to come up. Hopefully, you have the players. Today, I had my best pinch-hitter available.”