If Dodgers hurler Odalis Perez feels like trash, you can just call Albert Pujols (above), The Garbage Man. From the LA Daily News’ Tony Jackson.
Perez was banished to the bullpen a month into the season because of his chronic ineptitude on the mound and his chronically bad demeanor in the clubhouse, and for the most part has been there ever since. After the game, he sat in the plush visiting clubhouse at the spanking new ballpark here and cut loose on the sporadic way he is being used.
“I’m tired of being treated like trash,” Perez said. “I don’t have the same confidence that I used to have. For me to regroup and be the same guy out there, I need to go out there more often and pitch.
“Believe me, it’s killing me. It’s killing me.”
Perez has a 6.79 ERA, and there is little reason to call on him in anything other than the most innocuous of situations. In fact, there would be little reason even to keep him around if he wasn’t in the second season of a three-year, $24 million contract and if the Dodgers didn’t still owe him more than $17 million of that money.
“I have cried a lot of times thinking about it,” Perez said. “My son asks me why I’m not playing. Nobody told me what I did wrong.”
When he then was asked if he plans to meet with Little to ask him that question, Perez said, “Believe me, I will.”
Perez also made it clear he would welcome a trade, something the Dodgers clearly would welcome, too. But Perez’s contract, as well as his reputation, make that highly unlikely.