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Roger Mooney

Roger Mooney covers the Tampa Bay Rays for The Tampa Tribune, TBO.com and News Channel 8. He has covered the Rays since their first season in 1998, including 11 years for the Bradenton Herald. Roger has also covered Florida, South Florida and Florida State football, the Bucs and the Lightning.

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Keeping it fresh is the power behind Peña’s power

Posted Jun 11, 2010 by Roger Mooney

Updated Jun 11, 2010 at 12:08 AM

ROGER MOONEY
ST. PETERSBURG – It was after a 6-1 loss to the Rangers last Saturday in Arlington, after another 0-for-4 from Carlos Peña when Peña dissected another quiet day at the plate by himself and by his teammates.

“We’re just going through a little bit of a rough spot this moment,” Peña said.

Then he caught himself.

“Or we did. Things start again fresh tomorrow.”

If you don’t know by now, Peña is one of the more positive people you will meet in baseball. He might even out-positive his manager, Joe Maddon, if that is possible.
But guess what?

With a fresh approach the following day, Peña hit a home run and a single to snap a 2-for-30. He hit two homers Tuesday, including a grand slam, hit another home run Wednesday and yet another Thursday.

Suddenly, the biggest out in the Rays lineup his crushing baseballs like he did during his first three seasons in Tampa Bay.

“He’s a run producer,” Maddon said. “He’s got to drive them in, and he’s got to score. So please, stop looking at his batting average.”

The batting average after Thursday’s 3-2 loss is .186, almost 20 points higher than it was when Peña went to work Sunday morning.

But the important numbers are the power numbers – four games, five home runs, seven RBI. He also drew a walk in the ninth to represent the winning run in the one-run loss.

The power surge gave him 129 homers as a Ray, which moved him past Aubrey Huff for the most in team history. Also, since the start of the 2007 season, Peña has more home runs than anyone in the American League.

Did he really see this coming with his comments after Saturday’s loss?

Not really.

“I think sometimes we say, ‘We are going through a tough time.’ Well, you are including the present and you’re letting the past contaminate the present,” Peña said Thursday night. “That’s why I immediately corrected myself to ‘We were.’ Just little words like that give you a shift of energy. OK, I was going through a tough time, today is today, it’s totally different. Yesterday was tough. Today is a brand new fresh day. It’s definitely the mentality you must have. As a professional athlete, baseball players, this ballclub, we want to have short memories, so short we don’t want to know what happened yesterday, good or bad. If it’s good, we want to draw energy from it and then we drop it and stay humble. If it’s bad, we let it go and maybe think of some past successes and bring ourselves up again. It’s about keeping ourselves on an even keel.”

How easy is to stay on an even keel?

“Very difficult,” Peña said. “That is easier said than done, no doubt. Personally I try to challenge myself to think that way and find that happy medium and the right perspective, and as a team I think we do a pretty good job of that. Every day we try to remind ourselves of it and never lose sight of the humility when you’re playing well, because I think eventually it will help you if you become lackadaisical, and at the same time, when it’s not going so well, keep the right perspective and say, ‘OK, it’s better than it seems. Just stay grounded, take it a day at a time, stay humble, it’s all good have good at-bats. It’s so important to maintain yourself on that line, because it’s a long season.”

Peña has proven he can carry the Rays with his bat, which is why he stays in the lineup despite a 5-for-50 slump. Well, that and his Gold Glove defense.

“Power hitters tend to be that way,” Maddon said. “There are some power hitters who are the anomaly – Albert Pujols as an example, Barry Bonds. But a lot of guys can go through those moments where they get really hot for a while and really cold for a while. You got to take the bad with the good. You just got to wait it out, encourage them and wait for it to happen, and when it does there are a lot of rewards that can be reaped from it. I don’t get discouraged. And truly, I’ve said it before and I’m going to say it again, I don’t care about his batting average. Everybody is locked into that one number. It’s truly him and the defense and how they play him and how he hits is going to cause his numbers to be less. And then you get the negative complimentary affects when he hits the ball hard right into the shift and it’s an out and he presses even more.”

And how do stop from pressing?

By believing tomorrow is the day when everything goes right.

Peña will say that most nights.

Last Saturday, after a sloppy loss in the brutal Texas heat, he was right.