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Perez still believes he'll be able to build up properly ahead of Opening Day despite the fingernail issues that have plagued him this spring, Christina De Nicola of MLB.com reports.
The precocious 20-year-old right-hander threw only 14 pitches Wednesday due to a recurrence of the issues -- which is problematic when he was scheduled to get up into the 70-pitch range and days are running short on the Grapefruit League calendar. Perez says his early exit wasn't due to his nail splitting again however, but rather that the fake nail he was wearing to protect it began to lift up. "I don't know yet," Perez said Wednesday when asked what the next step in his preparations for the regular season would be. "I spoke with [head athletic trainer] Lee [Meyer], and he told me that we will tackle this early [Thursday], and we're going to make sure we have a plan so this doesn't happen during the season." As yet, Perez's availability for Opening Day doesn't appear to be in real jeopardy, but one more truncated spring outing simply won't leave him enough time to get built up.
