TAMPA, Fla. — W hen the Tampa Bay Rays acquired Freddy Peralta from the New York Mets in August, he looked to be pretty much a mess.

His stats where out of whack with his usual solid form, his velocity was down, his mechanics were off-kilter and his confidence and bright smile were missing.

But a couple of months with the American League-best Rays have done Peralta wonders, improving what’s running through his head and what’s coming out of his right arm.

So much so that Monday night he’ll be their starter for pivotal Game 2 of the Division Series against the Yankees at a sold-out Tropicana Field, with the chance to pitch the Rays to within one win of playing for the pennant.

“I was (with the Mets, following a January trade from the Brewers), and I was happy there. Obviously, I wasn’t in the spot I wanted to be when I talk about how my numbers were over there,” Peralta said.

“But this is baseball. Everything changed when I got traded. I’ve been treated here as a king, and I feel really good about it. They welcomed me really well here. For me and my family, (starting Game 2) is a great opportunity.”

When the Rays traded three mid-tier prospects for Peralta on Aug. 2, they looked past his 5-9 record and 4.99 ERA and were confident he wasn’t far off from his 2025 All-Star form, when he won 17 games for the Brewers and finished fifth in voting for the National League Cy Young Award.

They weren’t sure initially what it would take. But the more they listened to what Peralta thought would help and got a true sense of how open and eager he was to get right, they were confident they would get there. Plus, they figured he’d benefit from the Rays’ success and winning culture.

After spending four starts working through some adjustments — including quickening and streamlining his delivery, raising his release point and increasing his extension, mixing in more changeups, slightly boosting his velocity — Peralta found his old self. He went 5-0 with a 0.69 ERA over his final six regular-season starts, posting 29 strikeouts and nine walks over 34 innings.

“It’s a testament to him returning to form,” Rays pitching coach Kyle Snyder said, “and kind of recapturing what he’s always been.”

Or, as fellow starter Nick Martinez said, “He got his swagger back.”

There were a lot of Rays involved in helping Peralta — he prefers to say “get back on track” rather than fixed, because he “wasn’t broken” — including several pitching department specialists and bullpen coach Jorge Moncada, with Snyder leading the way.

Peralta lauded Snyder for giving him the right information and communicating it in a proper way. Also, for sharing some key advice: “To trust myself and forget about the past. It was a new beginning when I got here.”

Snyder insisted the project has been very much a team effort.

“Our department is full of a lot of really reputable people that put our heads together, that brought him something and that allowed him to return to being himself,” Snyder said.

Plus, the Rays’ approach of stressing what a player does well rather than harping on what he does wrong was a proper fit with Peralta’s personality.

“I wanted him to be himself again and not continue to chase the fix,” Snyder said. “He didn’t get out of the gate well (with the Mets); it’s a little difficult to hear always what’s going wrong and what needs to be fixed.

“Once you share with him what he does well, what he used to do well, who he was — and he wasn’t that far removed from in 2025 being a top five Cy Young Award candidate. What I think we do a good job of … (is) sharing with them what makes them unique. … We went back to the things that made sense to him. There wasn’t, like, a complete course correction. And it wasn’t always ‘under construction.’"

Cash acknowledges all the input Peralta received but said that ultimately he deserves the credit.

“I don’t want anybody to lose sight that Freddy Peralta has been an elite pitcher for a long time. I know he had (several) months that he’d probably like to have back from his time with the Mets,” he said.

“I give Freddy all the credit in the world for coming here, being super positive, high energy, open-minded and very, in a way, I think he was vulnerable in the way he’s explained to Kyle and Jorge, like, ‘Hey, these are the things I was comfortable with. These are some things that I got myself to be uncomfortable with, and I’ll trust whatever information you’ve got and we can talk about it.’”

Cash said Sunday that in addition to being confident they were acquiring a good pitcher, the Rays were certain they were getting a great guy, which made them feel better about a successful turnaround.

As the trade was being made, they got a few comparisons to Willy Adames, the shortstop they traded in 2021 to the Brewers who was known as one of the best clubhouse leaders.

“When we heard that, I think our coaches’ room lit up, because that’s about as good as a comp you’re going to get to a person,” Cash said. They also heard directly from Adames, who raved about his friend and former teammate.

With the atypical extra day off between Games 1 and 2 in this best-of-five series, the Rays only named Drew Rasmussen to start Saturday’s opener and told Peralta and the other three starters to be ready at any time.

Peralta, 30, and a free agent at season’s end, could have been used in relief Saturday (and then to start Game 3 Wednesday), but with Ramussen so good — taking a no-hitter into the eighth inning of their 1-0 win — Peralta was targeted for Monday.

That makes sense, since as part of his six-start turnaround, Peralta is 2-1 with a 1.69 ERA and .116 opponents average in four games under the tilted roof at the Trop, where the still-air conditions make his four-seam fastball play up.

He considers starting a playoff game for the Rays a “very special” opportunity.

“Since I got here,” he said, “I felt something I was looking for, which is the energy, the way that the boys play the game. … It’s amazing."

So, what do the Rays expect from Peralta in Game 2?

“Energy,” Cash said. “Excitement. A lot of smiles.”

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