'Fastball Freddy' Was A Mets Failure Who’s A Playoff Success

When the New York Mets traded starter Freddy Peralta, the idea of Peralta pitching in playoff baseball seemed ridiculous. Peralta was badly broken to the point of being one of the worst starters in baseball, and the Mets had to sell low in moving him because it was completely obvious that things in New York weren’t going to work. 

Now the ridiculous has become reality. Peralta will start for the Tampa Bay Rays on Tuesday night against the Cleveland Guardians, and he’ll be facing a clutch moment after the Guardians got a surprising 7-3 win in Game 1. 

The idea of the former Mets starter pitching in a key playoff game would have inspired visions of Peralta turning into a puddle, but now the opposite is true. Peralta pitched to an ERA of 0.96 in September on the way to a 4-0 record, per Charlie Wright of MLBTradeRumors.com, and he gave up an earned run in 4-2/3 innings against the New York Yankees in Game 2 of the ALDS.

His mound opponenet will be rookie left-hander Parker Messick, who’s been decidedly uneven in his first postseason go-round. Messick had 11 strikeouts in his first two ALDS appearances, but he also had six walks, and he was unable to get out of the third inning in Game 4 against the Chicago White Sox. 

On the one hand, this is a thrilling matchup because it’s so unexpected. Playoff baseball is completely different from the regular season, as teams like the Rays that steamroll through the season and the first round often find themselves up against it when they encounter a hot team like the Guardians. 

No one knows what either pitcher is going to do, and it’s nothing short of remarkable that Peralta looks like the more reliable pitcher in this matchup given what happened to him in New York. 

From the Mets perspective, it represents a unique form of failure that the Mets have perfected. They’ve been able to take really good players and turn them into disasters lately, so kudos to Peralta for making a successful escape from New York and salvaging what looked like a broken career waiting to happen. 

For Mets fans, it’s fair to ask why this actually occurred. The Rays’ fix for Peralta started with having him abandon pitching out of the windup, which is a relatively simple experiment to try. Right now there’s no reason to think the Mets won’t keep botching situations like this, which is why they’re in last place in the NL East and going nowhere.