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Royals Head-Scratching Baserunning Decision Foiled by Juan Soto Baffled MLB Fans

They'd love to have this one back...

Josh Wilson

Perez in Game 1 of the ALDS
Perez in Game 1 of the ALDS / Turner
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When it comes to fall baseball, early runs on the board can mean all the difference when it comes to giving a team a confidence boost. Kansas City Royals third-base coach Chuck Hiller and catcher Salvador Perez were complicit in an aggressive base-running choice in the first inning of Game 1 of the ALDS against the New York Yankees which produced plenty of opinions around the baseball world.

With zero outs and a ball in play to right field with runners on first and second, Perez rounded third and was sent home by Hiller. Outfielder Juan Soto got the ball on a hop, loaded up, and sent it home to his catcher, Austin Wells, who easily tagged out Perez.

The outcome says it all, but there's a world in which this move could pay off. And you can't really fault a team for getting after it early in a playoff game. But peeling back the layers, it's difficult to understand the decision. The Royals had zero outs, and Perez's sprint speed is a slow 24.8 feet per second. That ranks 547th in MLB and 36th (of 47) of catchers who had at least 75 opportunities.

It's a decision that, if it pays off, we call gutsy. When it doesn't, it gets torn to bits. That's the cutthroat nature of professional sports, especially placed under the intense microscope of the postseason.

Fans and pundits alike had thoughts:

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Josh Wilson
JOSH WILSON

Josh Wilson is the news director of the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated. Before joining SI in 2024, he worked for FanSided in a variety of roles, most recently as senior managing editor of the brand’s flagship site. He has also served as a general manager of Sportscasting, the sports arm of a start-up sports media company, where he oversaw the site’s editorial and business strategy. Wilson has a bachelor’s degree in mass communications from SUNY Cortland and a master’s in accountancy from the Gies College of Business at the University of Illinois. He loves a good nonfiction book and enjoys learning and practicing Polish. Wilson lives in Chicago but was raised in upstate New York. He spent most of his life in the Northeast and briefly lived in Poland, where he ate an unhealthy amount of pastries for six months.

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