Glen Perkins Tackles a Challenging Career Quiz
Glen Perkins had a successful four-season stint at the back end of the Minnesota Twins bullpen. From 2012-2015, the St. Paul-born southpaw was credited with 12 wins and 118 saves while posting a 2.93 ERA over 254 appearances comprising 251 2/3 innings. Moreover, he was an All-Star in three of those campaigns. A mixed-results starter earlier in his career, Perkins ultimately finished with a 35-25 won-lost record, 120 saves, and a 3.88 ERA over 624 1/3 frames while pitching exclusively with the Twins from 2006-2017.
He now serves as one of the team’s broadcast analysts, providing insight befitting a reputation he had during his playing days. Perkins was rightly regarded as one of the game’s most analytically inclined pitchers.
How well does the left-hander remember his matchups against big league hitters? Let’s just say that Perkins’ power of recollection is every bit as impressive. He proved as much when he sat down recently for the eighth installment of our Challenging Career Quiz, a series that had thus far comprised Geoff Blum, David Cone, Mark Grant, Mark Gubicza, Jeff Montgomery, Dan Petry, and Steve Sparks. (Links to those pieces can be found on their player pages.)
I began by asking Perkins to whom he surrendered the most hits. His first two guesses, Miguel Cabrera (seven hits) and Carlos Santana (eight) were both wrong. He then correctly named Paul Konerko, who had 11. What does the southpaw remember about the erstwhile Chicago White Sox slugger?
“I had two different careers,” Perkins replied. “I was a starter and gave up a bunch of hits, then I was reliever and didn’t give up nearly as many. Pauly probably got me a bunch when I was a starter, although I do think I did well against him when he was still closer to his prime. I remember that the last year he played [2014] he mostly just hit singles. He had a little short swing and just punched the ball. He didn’t do any damage, but he did have some hits against me.”
Perkins was spot-on with his recollections. Konerko had five singles in six trips to the plate against him that year. He had previously gone 6-for-24 with a pair of doubles and a home run.
A batter who did do damage against Perkins was Santana. The still-active, 40-year-old switch-hitter went 8-for-13 with two doubles and four home runs. Perkins promptly named him when asked who took him deep most often.
“I remember the first time I faced him,” he said of Santana. “He had that high leg kick. He hit a popup that got misplayed by both of our middle infielders and our center fielder, and it fell in for a single. One other time, he hit a ball off the left-field wall at Target Field so hard that he only got a single. We didn’t have exit velos back then, but it was probably the hardest-hit ball I ever gave up.
“One of the homers he hit off of me was in Cleveland,” Perkins went on to say. “We had a two- or three-run lead and there were two outs. I hadn’t thrown a changeup in a couple of years. Kurt Suzuki was catching. He called a fastball. I thought to myself, ‘I can’t get him out. The hell with it, I’m going to throw a changeup.’ I did, and he hit it out.”
The former closer does have one good memory of his battles against the longtime slugger.
“The last time I faced him, I struck him out on a fastball that was helmet high,” he recalled. “Above the brim of his helmet, logo high. And he never chased. I could never get him to swing at a breaking ball in the dirt. For some reason, he swung. He’d probably seen 10 or 11 pitches in that at-bat, and maybe that was part of it.
“I had talked to him one time later in my career and asked him, ‘What do I have to do to get you out?’” Perkins added. “He told me that he just sees the ball really well off of me. And the funniest part about Carlos is that Brian Duensing, who I think would admit was a lesser version of me — we were both left-handed, he threw a little slower, his breaking ball wasn’t as sharp — owned him. Carlos Santana went something like 2-for-30 against him. [It was actually 2-for-32.] Some guys simply see certain pitchers better. The three guys I felt like I struggled with the most in my career — I don’t know if the numbers back this up — were Santana, Victor Martinez [7-for-19 with three doubles and a home run], and Carlos Guillén [5-for-10 with two doubles and a home run]. They were all switch-hitters who were better from the left side, and for some reason I had no confidence against them.”
The batter he fanned the most times?
“Miguel Cabrera,” Perkins stated confidently. When I told him that another player is tied for that distinction, he gave an emphatic response, “Oh man, Adam Dunn!”
Dunn not only went down on strikes eight times against Perkins, he did so while going 0-for-11 with one walk.
“Adam Dunn couldn’t hit my fastball,” the southpaw explained. “He was one of the only big-name lefties I could get out. I didn’t have good numbers against lefties, because for the most part, teams, late in games, would pinch-hit for the lesser lefties. So, if I were facing a lefty, it was usually an Adrián González or a David Ortiz. Guys like that. But Adam Dunn… I could just throw him fastballs, and it was a matter of time. It could be three pitches or six pitches, but he was going to strike out. It was all high fastballs. I didn’t even throw him breaking balls.”
And then was Cabrera, whose eight strikeouts versus Perkins were part of a 7-for-25 line that also included one double, one home run, six walks, and a lone RBI.
“Miggy is the guy that gave me confidence that I good be a good big league pitcher,” said Perkins. “I remember facing him after I’d gone back to being a reliever — I’d originally come up as a reliever — and I was jamming him. I was throwing him heaters in, heaters in, heaters in. The inning ends, I go back to the dugout, which was on the first-base side, and am getting a drink of water. He goes out to play first base and is pointing at me. He gives me a grimace face and is motioning with his hand, like a pitch was inside and he didn’t like it there. I’m thinking, ‘If he doesn’t like me throwing fastballs in on him, there isn’t a right-handed hitter in the game that is going to like that. I’m going to do more of that.’
“I don’t know why he struck out against me,” Perkins continued. “He didn’t strike out a ton. But I could get him looking at fastballs in, and I could get him swinging at fastballs up and in. I got him to swing over breaking balls. His damage against me was when I was a starter. The home run he hit was on a changeup at the Metrodome. This is the two careers of Glen Perkins: the starter and the reliever. He didn’t have a lot of success against me as a reliever.”
My next question was a stumper. But while Perkins couldn’t name the batter who went 8-for-14 with a triple, two walks, and no strikeouts against him, he did have a good story about him.
“OK, Bobby Abreu; that makes sense,” he said upon learning the answer. “He hit a line drive off my leg when he was with the Angels. I ended up throwing eight innings that game, but he smoked a line drive… and it ended up being an out. There is a 1-5-3 in the scorebook from that ball that Bobby Abreu lined off of my leg. He was a really underrated player. Good hitter. Average power. A smart baserunner, too. He was a guy who would take a short lead, then steal second base easily.”
Asked which batter he faced the most times, Perkins wrongly guessed Alex Gordon (28 plate appearances), then correctly named Alexei Ramirez (35) with his second attempt.
“What I remember about him is that he was a guy who would move up in the box with two strikes,” Perkins said of the former White Sox shortstop. “He wouldn’t do it while he was getting set, but rather after I got set on the mound. I would see him shuffle forward. He’d be looking for a breaking ball, wanting to catch it out front before it bounced. There was a time at Target Field when he did that, and in that moment I thought, ‘Throw this as hard as you can.’ I did, and it was one of the two pitches that registered at 98 mph on the Target Field radar gun. It hit Kurt Suzuki’s glove just as he was starting his swing. I got that one by him pretty good.”