Along about the moment Sal Perez fouled off the seventh offering in a nine-pitch duel in the eighth inning on Wednesday at Kauffman Stadium, the scan button in his mind came to a pause.
With the bases loaded and no outs and the Royals trailing Boston 4-2, for perhaps five seconds Perez considered the fact he had not hit a grand slam since making his major-league debut in 2011.
Why it occurred to him just then is a matter of conjecture.
Maybe the idea surfaced because he’d squandered the previous pitch against Red Sox reliever Robby Scott, a ripe fastball right down the middle.