Brayan Pena, who spent the 2014 season with the Cincinnati Reds, was one of the Detroit Tigers’ catchers last year during Max Scherzer’s 21-3 Cy Young Award-winning season. One year later, Pena has been rewarded for the role he played.
On Monday, Pena received an engraved Rolex watch in the mail. He told The Detroit Free Press that Scherzer had told him last year he would be getting him a nice gift if the right-hander won the Cy Young.
“I never expected him to go this nice,” Pena said. “That was awesome. One of the best gifts I’ve ever had. He really didn’t have to do that. It was our job to be there for him. For him to appreciate what we did that year with a gift like this shows how a great of a guy he is.
“I was speechless when I opened the box.”
We’re not sure why Scherzer waited until a year later to give Pena the gift, but that really doesn’t matter. We often see NFL running backs buying nice gifts for their offensive linemen (like DeMarco Murray did recently) to thank them, but pitchers spending thousands to thank their catchers is a bit more rare.
H/T Hardball Talk
