When the Tampa Bay Rays return home Monday for the first World Series game at Tropicana Field since 2008, they will give the ball to one of their shortest-tenured players. Right-hander Freddy Peralta, acquired from the New York Mets at the trade deadline, will start Game 3. It will be his first start since his stellar performance in Game 6 of the ALCS, which earned him ALCS MVP honors.
"It feels so good because the way that we've been working on the little things in general," Peralta said after Game 6. "Everybody, not only the pitching coach and all that, I mean everybody from the trainers, people that helped me to feel better with the massage and all that, it's been amazing. They've been awesome with me.
They've been giving the best of themselves to make me feel good on the field every day." A year ago, Peralta led the league with 17 wins and finished fifth in the NL Cy Young voting with the Milwaukee Brewers, the team he will face as Tampa tries to mount a comeback from down 2-0 in the series. As they tend to do, the Brewers traded Peralta in the offseason, a year before he was scheduled to hit free agency. Peralta went to the Mets, disappointed, was traded to the Rays at the deadline, and has since surged.
"His three months or four months in New York probably didn't go the way he wanted or the way he performed his first five years (in the league)," Rays manager Kevin Cash said before the World Series. I give Freddy a lot of credit for being a good pitcher and being vulnerable enough to say, 'I wasn't comfortable doing some things and I want to get back to my strengths.' He guided that through the entire two months he's been with us, and he took off in September and has continued to take off in October." The Rays are as good as any team at taking a player, accentuating his strengths, and getting the best out of him. This isn't a case of a good pitcher having a few rough months and then getting his season on track.
The Rays took Peralta into the lab and made several important changes that have led to this success. Here's how Tampa fixed Peralta in their brief time with him after the trade deadline. It starts with the delivery and introducing a common trait for Rays pitchers.
They take away the full windup and have the pitcher pitch exclusively from the stretch. Ace Drew Rasmussen is the best example of this. Peralta might be the second best.
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