Martín Pérez had already been in the Rangers’ system for two years when a teenaged Jurickson Profar signed in July 2009.
He watched Profar rise as the top prospect in the game.
He watched shoulder woes knock him off course. He watched him bounce from Texas to Oakland to San Diego to Colorado to release waivers.
He watched from afar in Pittsburgh as Profar finally became the player that Pérez always thought he would.
Then he watched with his mouth wide open when Profar, with the Padres down two runs, showed bunt with two runners on in the eighth inning Tuesday night.
“I was with (Ha-Seong) Kim — Profar tried to bunt and I said no, no swing the bat,” Pérez said. “I told Kim this was going to be No. 20.”
Pérez was right.
On a night in which Padres pitchers needed pick-me-ups, it was Manny Machado and Profar coming through in a 7-5 win over the Minnesota Twins in front of a crowd of 39,143.
The former tied the game with a two-run shot in the seventh inning after Bailey Ober (6 IP, 3 ER) outdueled Pérez and the latter answered the bell in the eighth after a rare stumble from All-Star reliever Tanner Scott.
Like Pérez, Scott also watched with confusion when Profar squared to bunt on Steven Okert’s first offering after a pinch-hit single from Donovan Solano and a single from Luis Arraez brought the go-ahead run to the plate.
In fact, there was a lot of head-scratching going on as the Padres’ All-Star left fielder appeared ready to give himself up.
“Our whole dugout was like, ‘What? What?’” Scott said. “That guy hitting the way he is, he’s pretty good.”
And yet the decision made complete sense to the Padres’ Renaissance man.
“I’m Profar. And Profar plays really good baseball,” he said. “So if I bunt it, I will be safe — 100 percent. And it’s going to be bases loaded, no outs for Jake Cronenworth.”
He added: “That’s the No. 1 thing that switched this year for me — play baseball with my instincts. So you guys are seeing the real Profar playing baseball.”
Thankfully, Profar saw that first pitch sailing wide as he pulled the bat back. Then he saw another fastball stay high. Then he uncorked a swing on a slider below the strike zone, pulling it out to left for a go-ahead home run and the 20th of his season, tied for a career high with five-plus weeks left to a resurgent 2024.
“Our team’s never out of it,” Scott said. “I didn’t put us in the best situation and for our offense to rally off that and to get two base hits and then Profar’s bomb and just keeping following it up, it’s great to see.”
Before the inning was over, Xander Bogaerts added on with an RBI double to give Robert Suarez a two-run cushion to work with in the ninth and he locked down a series win with a perfect frame to keep the Padres a game ahead of the Diamondbacks atop the NL wild-card standings.
“With the offense that we have,” Machado said, “with the bullpen that we have, with the team that we have, we’re going to continue to fight.”
Pérez was sure of that much even after exiting following his shortest outing since joining the Padres. He struck out two and allowed three runs on seven hits and a walk in 4⅔ innings.
Yet his confidence never wavered.
Not when the Twins took a 2-1 lead on Ryan Jeffers’ home run in the fourth inning.
Not when they added on a run in the fifth or when they answered Machado’s game-tying homer with a parade of singles off Scott to take a 5-3 lead.
“I don’t feel bad,” Pérez said. “That’s a good thing. I know somebody’s going to do it. They are going to come and do the job.”
All the better that it was his old friend Profar again at the end.
“I’m proud of him,” Pérez said. “He’s been working so hard for so many years and I think he’s matured a lot. He knows what kind of abilities he has. He just told me, ‘Martín, I’m just trying to enjoy my game. Nobody has a chance to play 10 years in the big leagues and now I’m just going to go out there and have fun and do my job.’ ”
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