Freddy Peralta has earned the Fastball Freddy nickname for a reason, and Tuesday night at Tropicana Field showed exactly why.
In the Rays’ 3-1 win over the Guardians, which evened the American League Championship Series at 1-1, Peralta delivered six scoreless innings and leaned on his heater from start to finish. It was the longest postseason outing of his career, and it came with his biggest workload as a Ray: 99 pitches, 71 of them four-seam fastballs.
The velocity was there, too. Peralta reached 99.4 mph on a fouled-off four-seamer to Jo Adell in the fifth inning, the fastest pitch of his nine-year MLB career.
He had already flashed big numbers in his last outing, a win over the Yankees in AL Division Series Game 2, when he hit at least 97 mph a career-best 20 times. Against Cleveland, he did it even more often, getting to 97 mph 29 times.
That included three four-seamers at 99.0 mph or faster, something he had done only five times before Tuesday entered the picture. His 71.7% four-seam usage rate in the start was his highest in any outing since June 11, 2019.
The fastball barrage set up the rest of his night. After Adell fought off the 99.4 mph heater, Peralta answered with another 99.0 mph pitch that turned into a lineout to center, leaving two runners stranded.
He then returned for the sixth and sent the Guardians down in order. The outing ended with a strikeout of Petey Halpin, Peralta’s sixth of the game, on a changeup in the zone.
As he came off the mound, Peralta screamed, and the Tropicana Field crowd responded with chants of “Freddy! Freddy!”
The Rays’ offense backed him with three runs in the fourth inning, all unearned after a two-out error by Guardians third baseman José Ramírez, putting Peralta in position to earn just the second postseason win of his career.
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