It’s always a scary moment when a catcher realizes he’s not sure what pitch is being thrown, especially when the hurler has stuff like James Karinchak.

Karinchak threw a curveball in the 10th inning of the Indians’ 2-0 victory over the White Sox on Tuesday night, but that wasn’t the pitch backstop Roberto Pérez thought he called. With the automatic runner on second base, the two utilized a new set of signals, but communication was lost in the process. So when Karinchak released a curveball, Pérez wasn’t expecting the pitch to break.

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Pérez got up out of his squat, expecting the pitch that started high to come in as a heater. But as he started to stand, the ball broke, and Pérez had to react quickly to avoid getting hit by the pitch. He immediately moved his glove and bare throwing hand down to try to make the catch, but the ball clipped his right ring finger, causing the medical staff to come out and check on him.

“Yeah, it's a little bit bruised up, but I should be OK,” Pérez said after Tuesday night’s game. “It's cold out there. I thought at first when I got hit, I thought I broke my finger.”

Luckily for the Indians, who finally have a healthy Pérez behind the dish after he played through injuries over the last two seasons, their catcher was able to stay in that game and get penciled back into the lineup on Wednesday.

“He’s fine,” Indians manager Terry Francona said. “I checked with him this morning and the trainers checked with him. He’s fine.”

Pérez said postgame that he still wasn’t sure what happened. Prior to the pitch, both he and Karinchak checked their cards that help keep them on the same page when it comes to signs with a runner on second. So, Pérez was determined to figure out where the miscommunication came into play to make sure it didn’t happen again.

“I've gotta go back and look at the video,” Pérez said. “Either I got crossed up by him, or I got crossed up myself. Just gotta get on the same page. We'll see. Sometimes I watch the video again, we'll find out.”

Cleveland inks a backstop
On Wednesday, Cleveland announced the signing of catcher René Rivera to a Minor League contract. Rivera was assigned to Cleveland’s alternate training site and got his first at-bat with the team in Tuesday’s exhibition game against Louisville.

Rivera spent the last two seasons with the Mets, recording just four plate appearances in 2020 due to bone chips in his left elbow that ended his season after two games. He’s a veteran of 12 Major League seasons with eight teams, posting a .221 career batting average with 62 doubles, two triples, 41 homers and 167 RBIs in 517 games.

Update from alternate training site
Along with Rivera seeing playing time on Tuesday, the Columbus Clippers had a few other highlights from their matchup against the Louisville Bats. Although Columbus was held to three hits, one of them was a long ball by Bobby Bradley (No. 19 prospect per MLB Pipeline) and the other two (both singles) came from Owen Miller (No. 17).

Two of Cleveland’s most intriguing pitching prospects put up scoreless frames as well, with Anthony Gose fanning three batters (with two walks) and Nick Sandlin working a solid 1-2-3 inning with one strikeout.