Tuesday night’s contest between the New York Mets and Tampa Bay is centered around a pitching matchup between Rays trade deadline acquisition Freddy Peralta and his former club.
Peralta (6-11, 5.11 ERA) will make his sixth start with the Rays in the game at St. Petersburg, Fla. He has faced the Mets four times in his career, posting a 4-0 record with a 2.70 ERA.
The 30-year-old Dominican joined the Mets in a trade from the Milwaukee Brewers in January and was a disappointing 5-9 with a 4.99 ERA over 22 starts.
With their season having spiraled to the National League East basement, the Mets (62-76) sent the right-hander to the Rays on Aug. 2 for three prospects.
Peralta pitched poorly in his debut in Colorado but regained his game to have solid if unspectacular starts against the Athletics and Baltimore. He was then hit hard in the next start — also against the Orioles — but finally got it right at the Detroit Tigers in his last start on Wednesday.
He tossed six shutout innings and yielded just two hits while striking out four to earn his first victory with Tampa Bay (82-55).
Catcher Liam Hicks, another player brought over in a trade, caught Peralta in the 3-0 win over the host Tigers and said the pitcher looked like the 17-game winner he was last season for the Brewers.
“I think it’s just (him having) confidence in his stuff,” Hicks said of Peralta, who faced two batters over the minimum. “Everyone knows how good his stuff is, so just getting him in the zone and trusting. He’s got good stuff. … (His change-up) is huge.
“If you can land that in the zone early, it just makes the fastball that much better. They call him ‘Freddy Fastball’ for a reason.”
The Mets won the series opener on Monday following a strong performance by starting pitcher Robert Stock, who won for the first time since 2019. Mark Vientos returned to the lineup from a fractured hand and homered to help build a three-run lead en route to a 3-2 victory.
However, Stock’s tenure in the rotation might be iffy.
Down on the farm Saturday, the Mets’ No. 2 pitching prospect Jonah Tong came within one out of authoring a no-hitter for Triple-A Syracuse in its 6-0 win in Game 1 of a doubleheader against the Lehigh Valley IronPigs.
Relying on a dominating changeup in a seven-inning contest in which he struck out eight batters, Tong toyed with a no-hit bid for 6 2/3 frames before Phillies prospect Kameron Misner foiled it with a single off the right field wall.
“I think we’ll continue to keep an eye on him, continue to watch, continue to see how he performs,” Mets interim manager Andy Green said. “The stuff has always been really, really good. When he’s got velo, when he fills up the strike zone, he’s good. And he’s done that more consistently recently, so we’re encouraged by that.”
With rosters expanding on Tuesday, there is a very good possibility Tong will get a start when the Mets host the San Francisco Giants in a three-game series beginning Friday.
Tuesday’s starter Sean Manaea (4-6, 4.55) is 3-1 with a 2.02 in six outings (five starts) against the Rays.
In August, the left-hander was 2-1 with a 4.94 ERA, surrendering seven homers in 31 innings.
–Field Level Media
