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We’re leading off the Prospect Report in slightly different fashion today, because Baseball America’s Josh Norris was on hand last night to see an exceptionally dominant performance from Red Sox RHP Luis Perales. The 21-year-old righty struck out 12 and elicited 26 whiffs over five innings and 81 pitches, using a four-seam fastball, cutter, slider and changeup to quickly and ruthlessly send hitter after hitter back to the bench.

Perales touched 99 mph and tied his career high in strikeouts. You can see all the whiffs below.

Check out Josh’s full breakdown from the game, which is free for all to read. He dives into Perales’ pitch mix and why he’s been successful so far. Eagle-eyed Baseball America readers will note that Perales is also a RoboScout darling this year and ranks among the top pitchers in all of High-A.

Gavin Cross, OF, Royals: Kansas City’s system has been excellent across the board all year long, and Cross—the organization’s first-rounder from 2022—has been one of the best rebounds after muddling through a first full season that finished with a .683 OPS in a year spent mostly at High-A Quad Cities. This year, now fully healthy, Cross has showed the potential he hinted at during his college career at Virginia Tech. He went 3-for-4 with a home run on Tuesday, bringing his season line to .311/.394/.481 with four longballs.

Jonah Tong, RHP, Mets: Tong has been one of the revelations of the early minor league season. He dominated Low-A for 18.2 innings before earning a bump to High-A, where he’s continued to roll through hitters. The same was true on Tuesday, when Tong punched out eight over 6.2 one-run innings against Hudson Valley in the South Atlantic League’s version of the Subway Series. Tong also got 19 swings and misses, second most in the Sally League on the evening. He now has 59 strikeouts in 38 frames.

Thayron Liranzo, C, Dodgers: As a rule, it’s always a good idea to take the weather into consideration when assessing hitting prospects in the early portion of a minor league season. That’s especially true in the Midwest League, where it is particularly frigid to begin the year. As such, even the best will succumb to the elements and have their talents muted. Consider Liranzo squarely in that mix. The Dodgers’ catching prospect was icy cold in April, when he hit .159/.274/.333 over 16 games. With the weather heating up, Liranzo has begun to perform. He collected two hits on Tuesday, in the process upping his May batting line to .307/.457/.491 with three home runs and more walks (15) than strikeouts (13).

Nelson Rada, OF, Angels: Rada has been moved quite aggressively throughout the course of his brief career. In 2023, he skipped the Arizona Complex League and went straight to Low-A. This year, he skipped High-A and went straight to Double-A, where he began the year as the youngest player at any upper-level classification on Opening Day. Understandably, Rada struggled in the season’s opening month, finishing April with a slash line of .213/.281/.238. This month, however, has been a different story. The speedy outfielder collected two more hits on Tuesday, upping his May marks to .333/.381/.351. He also stole a base, bringing his season total to 17.

Want to get ahead? Each day we’ll surface one prospect from recent Baseball America coverage who could be on the rise.

Baseball America Helium Pick Of The Day

Bryce Rainer, SS/RHP, Harvard-Westlake HS: Carlos Collazo revisited our preseason draft rankings today to take stock of which prospects helped or hurt their stock this spring. Rainer is one of the risers. Rainer has had a great spring with Harvard-Westlake and has himself into the top tier of high school players in this class, right beside Konnor Griffin. While some scouts still wanted to see him pitch more, Rainer has convinced many that he’s a definite hitter first who has big tools, a chance to stick at shortstop and an improved hit tool. He has big power and one of the better throwing arms in the class and has a shot to go inside the first 10 picks and be the first prep player selected. You can see breakdowns like this for each player in our rankings below.

Ben Badler explains why the MLB international signing system is broken.