Notes: Pérez update; Tito feeling better

CLEVELAND — The Indians had already gone 18 games without their starting backstop this year due to a right shoulder strain, so when Roberto Pérez came out of Wednesday’s game in Kansas City with right shoulder fatigue, the club collectively held its breath. But on Friday, everyone was able to

CLEVELAND — The Indians had already gone 18 games without their starting backstop this year due to a right shoulder strain, so when Roberto Pérez came out of Wednesday’s game in Kansas City with right shoulder fatigue, the club collectively held its breath. But on Friday, everyone was able to finally exhale.

Pérez came into Progressive Field on Friday afternoon to play catch and reported that his shoulder felt much better. Cleveland plans to keep him down for a few days to make sure that this doesn’t flare up similarly to the way it did during the first week of the season, but the team hopes that he’ll be back behind the dish on Sunday.

“He just basically has kind of like a dead arm,” Indians temporary manager Sandy Alomar Jr. said. “There’s nothing wrong with his rotator cuff. He should be OK in a couple of days.”

Pérez strained his shoulder on Opening Day while making an awkward throw to first base as he fell to the ground. The 31-year-old attempted to play through the pain for two more games before he was ultimately placed on the injured list.

“He reports that it’s much better than it was the last time,” Indians president of baseball operations Chris Antonetti said. “This is a very different thing. It’s more of a shoulder fatigue than anything else, so we’ll give him a couple days to rest it a little bit and then begin a throwing program, and he could be back here in the next few days. We don’t expect it to be long-term, but he won’t catch the next night or two.”

If there’s ever convenient timing for an injury, this may be an example. The Indians just picked up another big league backstop in Austin Hedges in the nine-player trade that sent Mike Clevinger to the Padres. And while it may have seemed a little crowded behind the plate with three Major League catchers on the 28-man roster, now it’s going to help the Tribe over the next few nights.

“Initially, we were thinking if there were a game in which Sandy León started and we wanted to give Roberto Pérez a day off, we would still have the opportunity to pinch-run or pinch-hit and still have another really good defensive catcher on the team,” Antonetti said. “What we’ve seen now is [Hedges] also provides a layer of protection and insurance in the event we have an injury to one of our catchers.”

Tito slowly feeling better
Antonetti paid a visit to Terry Francona at his apartment on Friday afternoon and reported that the Indians’ skipper is feeling much better than he was two weeks ago when he underwent a procedure to have a stent inserted to help his blood flow. Though Francona is slowly progressing, the team knows it will be a little while before he is back in the dugout.

“I was real encouraged by the way he looked today,” Antonetti said, “and I know he said he’s feeling better, which is all great news. But he has been through a lot and he’s in the middle of a recovery, so I still expect it will be some time before he rejoins us.”

A 1997 flashback
The two managers for this series have quite some history. Alomar was the Tribe’s catcher during its magical 1997 season and slashed .367/.406/.600 during the World Series that ended in a Game 7 loss to the Marlins. The man who scored the winning run for Florida, Craig Counsell, will be in the opposing dugout, leading the Brewers at Progressive Field.

“Every time I see him, I remember him scoring,” Alomar said. “It’s a tough one, but I kind of turned that page. It’s time to move on [from] that. I’m still scarred forever, because you went to seven games and you had the lead, but at the end of the day, we have to move on.”