Just like the Yankees envisioned, Oswald Peraza was hitting lasers all over the field in The Bronx.
Just about everything else about the situation Tuesday was unlike what the Yankees envisioned.
In his first game back at Yankee Stadium, Peraza — the former Yankees top prospect — blistered pitch after pitch, including a line-drive home run launched against Ryan Weathers, and reached base in all four plate appearances in the 7-1 Angels victory.
“He killed us,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “Stung three balls and then works a 12-pitch walk in his last at-bat. He was right in the middle of hurting us tonight.”
Once upon a time, Peraza was supposed to be part of the solution in The Bronx.
A 2016 signing out of Venezuela, the then-shortstop broke out in 2021 and sailed through the Yankees system, elevating his status enough to be seen as the club’s No. 2 prospect in 2022, sandwiched between No. 1 Anthony Volpe and No. 3 Jasson Domínguez.
Using a line-drive swing, Peraza played his way to a September 2022 debut and hit enough late in that season to earn a start at shortstop in the ALCS against the Astros.
“A lot of good memories here,” said Peraza, whose momentum halted the following spring.
Volpe outplayed him in camp and won an everyday job in the majors, and Peraza simply never hit enough in his sporadic major league stints to justify a shortstop competition.
He was shipped to the Angels at last year’s trade deadline in exchange for international bonus pool money and far-away outfield prospect Wilberson De Pena.
From the visiting clubhouse, Peraza said it was “weird” to be on the other side of the park but harbored no bad feelings.
“It’s business, it’s baseball,” Peraza said. “Now I’m with the Angels and enjoy every day.”
Peraza has not yet made the Yankees regret the trade, not hitting much last season, but he is off to a better start this season (batting .267 with an .838 OPS through 16 games while getting plenty of run at second and third base).
For one day, at least, he looked like a perfect player.
Against Weathers in the second inning, he smacked a single to center that left his bat at 110.1 mph, and in the fourth he waited on a changeup low in the zone and turned on it, drilling a home run to left for his third of the season to make it 4-0.
It was his first home run in his first game as a visitor after stroking just two in The Bronx in 69 games as a Yankee.
Peraza then victimized Paul Blackburn on a 105 mph single to left in the sixth before pestering Yerry De los Santos and earning a 12-pitch walk in the eighth.
If it felt especially satisfying to show his former team what he can do, Peraza did not want to state as much.
He credited his nice start this season to the work he has put in and adjusting a stance that allows him to be “more controlled with my body.”
And he is thankful for the Yankees, even if he is torching them.
“They’ve got a lot of good coaches, and they helped me every day,” Peraza said.
— Additional reporting by Greg Joyce