Dodgers embrace David Peralta’s ‘freight train’ energy, even as he battles slump
PHOENIX — As one of the more subtle side effects of their talent exodus over the winter, the Dodgers entered this season needing a new celebration for every time they got a hit.
With Trea Turner having departed in free agency, the helmet-tap ritual the club’s former shortstop inspired last season was voided. And leading up to opening day, players kicked around ideas in a team text message group chat about how to replace it.
“We talked about it before the season started,” outfielder David Peralta said. “Like, hey, what’s gonna be our sign for when we get hits?”
Peralta, one of several veterans the club signed this winter as part of its roster makeover, offered an idea.
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“I said, ‘If you want to get on the freight train, get on board,’ ” Peralta recalled with a laugh, referring to the nickname — and accompanying choo-choo hand signal — he’s had since the start of his major league career. “And everyone was like, ‘We’re gonna do the freight train. Let’s do the choo-choo.’ ”
Just like that, a new on-base routine was born — providing a glimpse into the kind of impact the 35-year-old Peralta is making during his first season in Los Angeles.
“I just love the way he plays every game like it’s his last,” manager Dave Roberts said. “There’s a fire, there’s an energy he brings. He’s an intelligent baseball player. … He’s a very unselfish ball player. So what I kind of hoped I’d see from him is exactly what he’s done.”
“He runs the bases with his hair on fire, like a train that’s going off the track.”
— Steve Berthiaume, Diamondbacks television broadcaster
That’s been true despite a slow start on offense from the former Arizona Diamondbacks star, who is just four for 23 after signing a one-year, $6.5-million deal this offseason to serve as a platoon option in left field.
In the series finale of his homecoming at Chase Field this weekend — in which the 10th-year veteran was welcomed back with his old in-stadium train horn sound, but also booed semi-playfully by the home crowd — Peralta delivered in his first at-bat, lining an RBI double into the left-field corner to give the Dodgers an early lead.
After that, though, he came up empty in his next four trips to the plate, having yet to end a slump that stretches back to the end of last year.
“I think the process has been great,” Roberts said earlier in the weekend. “There’s been a couple of at-bats where he’s chased late. But I feel good every time he’s in the batter’s box.”
In the meantime, Peralta has settled in with the club in other ways — epitomized every time someone gets on base, turns toward the dugout and pulls down on an imaginary train horn with a closed fist.
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“He’s been a big addition to this team,” said outfielder Trayce Thompson, who previously played with Peralta for one season in Arizona. “Not just who he is as a player — everyone knows what he brings to the game as a player and a teammate — but his energy and passion for the game is something that I think we’re all really excited to see and be around every day.”
Indeed, those have been defining characteristics for Peralta since the start of his major league career, when the converted pitcher and former independent league prospect made an impression with everything from his Gold Glove defense to hard-charging style on the base paths.
“He runs the bases with his hair on fire, like a train that’s going off the track,” said Diamondbacks television broadcaster Steve Berthiaume, who coined Peralta’s freight-train nickname during his rookie season in 2014.
“Thankfully, David liked it and made up some T-shirts and put it on the bottom of his bat,” Berthiaume added. “It just kind of became a thing.”
A decade later, the nickname — and the enthusiastic attitude it represents — remains central to Peralta’s reputation, drawing the Dodgers to him this offseason as they looked for another veteran bat.
“For a team that’s as established, that has accomplished so much as this organization, that energy is infectious,” Thompson said. “It’s something I think is super necessary.”
When coupled with the additions of other veterans such as Jason Heyward and Miguel Rojas, plus the emergence of rookies Miguel Vargas and James Outman, Thompson said it’s given this year’s team a different dynamic.
“It’s been a really cool mix,” he said. “Kind of a breath of fresh air.”
And to Peralta, it’s the type of influence he has always strived to bring — even as he works through an early-season slump with a Dodgers team he used to count as a division rival.
“I’ve been facing these guys for a long time,” Peralta said. “And yet, when I stepped in the clubhouse, it felt like we’ve been together for a long time. It wasn’t like, ‘Oh, I don’t know anyone.’ No, everyone welcomed me really well. Like, ‘finally, you’re on this side.’ So it didn’t take too long to click.”
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