The New York Yankees lost their seventh game in their last nine on Thursday in finale of a four-game series, as a player they dealt at last year’s trade deadline got his revenge, playing a key role in sending his old team to a dismal 11-4 defeat at the hands of the Los Angeles Angels.
Oswald Peraza, who was signed by the Yankees in 2016 as a 16-year-old out of Venezuela for a $175,000 bonus, drove in three runs, including a first-inning two-run homer off Yankees ace Max Fried, to help bury his old team.
Going 2-for-4 with a walk on the day at Yankee Stadium, Peraza played in three games of the four-game series and went 5-for-10 with two home runs, two walks and just one strikeout to deepen the Yankees’ misery. The Angels and Yankees split the four-game set on the Yankees’ home field.
Fried lasted 5 1/3 innings and, despite allowing only three hits, gave up five runs, all of them driven in by Peraza. After his home run in the first, Peraza came up against Fried with one out in the top of the sixth and the Yankees leading 3-2. With Mike Trout on second after taking the last of Fried’s three walks, and Jo Adell on first with a single, Peraza laced a 96 mph sinker from Fried to right field for a double that scored Trout and drove Fried from the game.
Yankees Gave Up on Peraza
After signing with the Yankees as a teenage infield prospect a decade ago, Oswald Peraza spent five seasons rising through the New York farm system before making his big league debut on September 22, 2022.
At the time, Peraza was considered a top-100 prospect in baseball.
But high prospect ranking or not, Peraza’s stay at the top level did not last long. The Yankees sent him back to the Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders for most of the 2023 and 2024 seasons. He played 52 games at the major league level in 2023, but only four in 2024 before finally making the Yankees’ Opening Day roster last year.
Even then, the Yankees brass was not sure where Peraza fit on the team. So, at the July 31 trade deadline, the Yankees traded Peraza to the Angels for teenage outfield prospect Wilberson De Pena, currently ranked as the No. 15 Yankees prospect by FanGraphs.
Yankees Slide Continues
The Yankees’ loss, thanks in part to Peraza, was Fried’s first of the season against two victories and raised the 32-year-old’s ERA more than a full run, from 1.93 to 2.97.
More importantly, after a morale-boosting walk-off 5-4 victory on Wednesday, the Yankees had a chance to win the four-game series over the Angels but instead were forced to settle for a split.
Trout belted a solo home run in the seventh inning, giving the Angels’ future Hall of Famer five blasts in the four-game series and seven on the young season.
Adell then smashed a grand slam off reliever Ryan Yarbrough in the top of the eighth to put the Yankees away for good in this game.
After starting the season in near-perfect fashion, winning seven of their first eight games, the Yankees now fall to 10-9 on the year. The Angels raised their record to 10-10.
Yankees Meltdown Continues as Peraza Torches Old Team in Dismal Defeat Thursday