Former Astros Pitcher to Retire Following 2022 Season

Former Astros reliever Oliver Perez will retire following his 2022 season in the Mexican League.

Although not known for his stay with the Houston Astros, longtime-reliever Oliver Perez announced that he will retire following the 2022 Mexican League season.

The Toros De Tijuana posted a video to Twitter last week of Perez with his family, announcing that 2022 would be Perez’s last dance. The club has tokened the 2022 season with the hashtag ‘OliverLastDance’.

The 40-year-old didn’t make it back to the Major League following a designation for assignment and eventually released by Cleveland, early in the 2021 season.

The left-hander appeared in five games, allowing zero runs over 3.2 innings of work. With 19 major-league seasons under belt, Perez could have been a waiver claim the Astros could have thought about early in the season with lefty woes to open the year.

Although the Astros didn’t bring Perez back, his 22 games in Houston were not memorable. Perez posted a 6.75 ERA through 12 innings of work, striking out 10.5 batters per nine innings.

Perez was a post-deadline acquisition from the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2015 for minor-league reliever Junior Garcia. Garcia, now 26-years-old, still pitches today at the Triple-A Reno Aces of the Diamondbacks, who play the Sugar Land Space Cowboys.

Perez pitched in two postseason games for the Astros in 2015, allowing one run in .1 innings of work on two hits and a walk to the Kansas City Royals. Following the season, he was granted free agency, before signing with the Washington Nationals.

Perez is a career journeyman with major-league stops in eight different franchises. His time in Houston was his only tenure with a team that lasted a less than two seasons, while also less than a full major-league season.