This version of Freddy Peralta, the one masterfully pitching for the third time in the ALCS on Monday night to secure the Rays’ World Series berth and earn MVP honors, is the one the Mets rarely saw this season.
Peralta has looked every part of an ace for the Rays this postseason, with his 5 ⅓ innings of one-run ball in Monday’s 7-3 win over the Guardians giving him a 1.08 ERA this postseason.
That dominance is a stark contrast to the back-end starter he portrayed with the Mets, posting a 4.99 ERA with the team and playing a sizable role in why the team flopped this season.
Peralta’s respective success and failure with the teams can be viewed as a representation of each squad’s season and added another successful entry to the Rays’ strong history of pitching development.
“Everything changed when I got traded,” Peralta told ESPN. “I said it before that I’ve been treated here as a king, and I feel really good about it. They’re working me really well here.”
Tampa Bay is known throughout baseball for its ability to build pitchers and, in this case, they rebuilt Peralta back into the top-end starter he portrayed in Milwaukee prior to his Mets trade.
Peralta, 30, posted a 3.79 ERA across eight seasons with Milwaukee, including a career-best 2.70 ERA in 2025 that landed him in fifth place in the NL Cy Young race.
The Mets acquired him hoping he could replicate that success, but he instead allowed more hits than innings pitched and saw his strikeouts per nine innings dip from 11.1 in 2025 to 8.9 with the team.
Tampa Bay took a shot on Peralta at the deadline in its quest to hold off the Yankees and Red Sox in the AL East and got to work on helping him return to his old self.
One notable change the franchise made was having him pitch out of the stretch again, like he had done with Milwaukee but abandoned with the Mets.
“He said, ‘I always feel comfortable pitching out of the stretch,’” Rays bullpen coach Jorge Moncada told ESPN. “So we were like, ‘Go with what makes you most comfortable,’ and he went back.”
Other changes implemented, per ESPN, included moving to the third-base side of the rubber, widening his stance, speeding up his delivery, a focus on strengthening his legs and raising his arm angle.
Those adjustments reportedly helped improve his fastball, hitting 99 mph Monday, and the Rays had Peralta lean more on his change-up.
Peralta posted a 3.55 ERA across 10 regular-season starts with Tampa Bay, including a 0.96 ERA in five September starts to help Tampa Bay win the division.
“There’s some minor adjustments here and there,” Tampa Bay pitching coach Kyle Snyder told ESPN. “But I think more than anything else, it was just getting him back to feeling like himself. I think if you get the environment right, a lot of other things can snowball in the right direction for you.”
Peralta began his postseason by holding the Yankees to one run in 4 ⅔ innings in Game 2 of the ALDS, and then stymied the Guardians three times in the ALCS.
He earned the win in Game 2 to even the series, recorded two outs in relief in the Game 4 victory and logged his second win Monday night to earn the Rays’ second World Series berth in franchise history.
Peralta now will compete in his first World Series before he enters free agency.
“It feels so good because the way that we’ve been working on the little things, in general, everybody — not only outside, not only the pitching coach and all that,” Peralta said. “Everybody, from the trainers, people that helped me to feel better with the massage and all that, it’s been amazing, great communication.
“They’ve been awesome with me. They’ve been giving the best of themselves to make me feel good on the field every day.”
