The White Sox have placed veteran lefty Martin Perez on the 15-day injured list due to a shoulder strain, the team announced. The injury ends Perez’s season. Left-handed reliever Cam Booser is up from Triple-A Charlotte to take his spot on the roster.
Perez, 34, exited his last start early and clearly knew something was amiss. He delivered a pitch to Orioles second baseman Jackson Holliday and quickly called for time before motioning for assistance from the training staff (video link). He looked directly at his shoulder, shook his head in frustration while handing the ball to manager Will Venable, and immediately departed with trainer James Kruk.
It’s been a frustrating year for the well-traveled Perez. He signed a one-year, $5MM deal with Chicago over the winter and has pitched quite well when healthy — but that’s an unusually notable caveat with Perez in 2025. The typically durable southpaw suffered a flexor strain during his fourth start of the season and was out for nearly four months. He returned in mid-August only to incur this shoulder injury in just his seventh start back on the bump.
Perez’s 2025 season will draw to a close with a solid 3.54 ERA — but in a relatively small sample of just 56 innings. It’s the fewest innings Perez has pitched in a season since 2014, when he underwent Tommy John surgery. He’s pitched in at least 26 games every full season since 2019 and also made a full slate of 12 starts in the shortened 2020 campaign. He’s been bumped to the bullpen amid a rough patch a couple of times — both with the ’21 Red Sox and the ’23 Rangers — but outside of a three-week absence due to a 2024 groin strain and a quick placement on the Covid list in 2021, this year’s pair of IL placements are Perez’s first since 2018.
The White Sox haven’t specified how long Perez will be sidelined, but ending the season with a shoulder strain after missing four months due to a flexor strain isn’t how any pitcher wants to head back into free agency. There’s a $10MM mutual option on Perez’s contract, but even if he were healthy, it’s been more than a decade since both sides of a mutual option were exercised in MLB. The Sox will pay Perez a $1.5MM buyout and he’ll become a free agent in November. The type of contract he signs will hinge heavily on the severity of his shoulder strain, which to this point remains an unknown.
