Actor Michael J. Fox once said something former Northwestern Lehigh and Lehigh University baseball standout Rafe Perich has come to understand through the game: “I am careful not to confuse excellence with perfection. Excellence, I can reach for; perfection is God’s business.”

For much of his first two professional seasons, Perich chased perfection.

The results reflected the struggle. Perich hit just .223 in A-ball in the Texas Rangers organization, despite possessing the physical tools that had carried him through Northwestern and Lehigh and into professional baseball.

What was missing, he realized, was the mental side of the game.

At an Alumni Day event at Lehigh following last season, Perich had a chance to talk with fellow alum and former major leaguer Matt McBride. Their conversation turned to that very subject.

“That was an important discussion for me,” said Perich, whose dad, Josh Perich, was McBride’s hitting coach at Lehigh. “We talked about the mental side of the game and what a grind it can be and that you have to not worry about being perfect and just play the game. You can have all the tools down, but if the mental side isn’t there, it definitely affects you.”

At 6-foot-3, 225 pounds, Perich had the frame. He was disciplined about his conditioning and diet. He put in the work — the drills, the extra batting practice — but the results still weren’t there.

Eventually, he realized more work wasn’t necessarily the answer.

“I had to learn to not worry about being perfect and just play the game. I had the tools and everything else was there, but I had to get back to playing the game and find ways to keep it fun,” Perich said.

These days, the 24-year-old Perich seems to be having plenty of fun.

Perich opened the 2026 season — his third in the Rangers organization — back at High-A Hub City and started 0-for-17.

Things turned around quickly.

By the end of April, he was hitting .236. On May 3, Perich tied a career high with three hits and set a personal best with five RBIs. Later that month, over a nine-day span, he produced two separate multi-homer games, collecting four hits and four RBIs in each.

Before May was over, he had earned a promotion to Double-A Frisco.

“It was kind of funny,” Perich remembered. “At the time, I was having trouble with pop-ups and was just really struggling with them. The manager called me into the office and asked what was going on. Before the conversation was over, he told me I was coming here (to Frisco), so it was kind of weird timing.”

Perich didn’t slow down after the promotion.

In a series at Corpus Christi just after the Fourth of July, he put together a six-game stretch in which he hit .381 (8-for-21) with four home runs and six RBIs. The performance earned Perich the first Player of the Week award of his professional career.

For McBride, Perich’s success at Double-A has been particularly encouraging.

“Double-A is usually the level where players start to fall off. A lot of good players in A-ball really struggle at that next level. When I saw how well he was doing at Double-A, I was really excited for him,” McBride said. “One of the biggest differences in players who are really good is consistency. He’s showing that consistency now and that’s a good sign.”

Perich was selected by the Rangers in the seventh round of the 2024 draft and is currently ranked the No. 19 prospect in the organization by MLB Pipeline. Combining his time between High-A Hub City and Double-A Frisco, he is batting .299 this season with 24 home runs and 74 RBIs.

Where the rest of the season takes him remains to be seen.

Teams will sometimes push a player up a level late in the year to give them a taste of what lies ahead. For Perich, that could mean a short stint at an even higher level. If he remains at Frisco, there is also the opportunity for a Texas League playoff run after the RoughRiders clinched a postseason berth by winning the first-half division title.

Either way, Perich isn’t spending much time thinking about it.

“I don’t really look at that (being promoted) or worry about what other players above me are doing. I didn’t think I would be going up to Double-A when I did, so I just focus on what I’m doing here and what I can control,” Perich said. “I feel pretty good about where I’m at and how I have developed as a player.”