Perez (5-6) held the Royals to three runs on eight hits and a walk with one strikeout over seven innings in a win Friday night.
Perez was on 10 days of rest thanks to the All-Star break, but it doesn't look like the extended layoff bothered him at all. He executed his pitch-to-contact game plan perfectly, with his one major mistake coming in the form of a second inning home run by Alcides Escobar. Perez will be asked to eat innings down the stretch, and the fact that he only needed 89 pitches to complete seven innings on Friday shows why he's well suited to the role.