Mark Grant hit Padres reliever Wandy Peralta with announcer jinx

If you’re skeptical about the existence of announcer jinxes, the eighth inning of Wednesday afternoon’s game between the Chicago Cubs and San Diego Padres might get you to reconsider.

Leading 3-1, the Padres called upon reliever Wandy Peralta to handle the eighth inning. The first hitter he faced was Chicago’s Pete Crow-Armstrong. After Crow-Armstrong fouled off the first offering from Peralta, a graphic displayed the reliever’s stats. Color analyst Mark Grant made a point of mentioning Peralta’s 0.00 ERA.

“Look at that ERA in 7 1/3,” Grant said.

You probably know where this is going.

Unfortunately for Peralta, those were his final moments having a perfect ERA on the young season. Crow-Armstrong turned on the next pitch he saw from Peralta, launching a home run into the right field seats.

If they just went over Peralta’s numbers when he first came into the game and mentioned that he had a clean ERA, this would be a stretch. After all, it was unlikely that Peralta was going to maintain a perfect ERA for the entire season. But Grant making a special point of his ERA, only to see Peralta cough up a home run seconds later?

That’s just a perfect announcer jinx.