MINNEAPOLIS
The baseball hit flesh and rattled bone and a dull crack echoed throughout Target Field. In the seconds after Salvador Perez absorbed a baseball in the right forearm, baseball's toughest man spun back toward the dugout and removed the helmet from his head. For a moment, he just sat there, tucked in a crouch, grimacing as Royals manager Ned Yost and trainer Nick Kenney climbed the stairs of the dugout.
It was the top of the seventh inning on Tuesday night and Perez, the reigning World Series Most Valuable Player, was in a serious degree of pain.