I'm all for baseball players acting like something other than cliche-generating automatons, but I'm not sure former Cardinal Chris Perez's "You can't see me" move in the course of his save against the Kansas City Royals—that's a John Cena gesture, in case you don't own his album—quite works for me. For one thing, since becoming the Cleveland Indians' perennially embattled closer he's already reached the upper bound of bearable closer behavior and, while he was at it, talked beanball on Twitter. For another, John Cena? Chris Perez can't invent his own wacky catchphrase/gesture combo?
↵If he'd just been a little more imaginative I could forgive Perez for all his Kenny Powers mannerisms. But what I think really gets me in a situation like this is simple sabermetric fundamentals. Chris Perez is a closer, and not a great one; when it comes to what makes baseball teams win, he's really not very important. This isn't just a pitcher blatantly showing somebody else up; it's the football equivalent of a pretty-good tight end doing it after he happens to make the game's final catch.