TOLEDO, Ohio – It should be a new reality show:  Someone visits struggling ballplayers and with a few quick tweaks, a baseball extreme makeover!

It happened to Vic Darensbourg with a twist of the wrist.  At age 34, the left-handed relief specialist from Los Angeles is no kid.

He's seen seven years of big league service, mostly with the Florida Marlins, but the Marlins cut him loose before the 2003 campaign.

Vic could be a barista at Starbucks for all the cups of coffee that he’s served up. Darensbourg has worn nine different uniforms, five of those in Triple-A. He has answered the call from the big leagues four times in the past two seasons, providing the Expos, Rockies, White Sox, and Mets with a few useful innings.

He had become spare parts: A reliever for a few innings, a fill-in for a road trip. Then, like a reality show contestant, New York Mets pitching coach Rick Peterson dropped into Darensbourg’s world, and did a complete makeover of Vic’s mechanics.

The Fire Sale

Away went the more conventional delivery of a young flame-thrower, who used to rely on his mid-90's fastball to incinerate opposing hitters.

“He's down around 88 (m.p.h.) right now,” said Toledo manager Larry Parrish. “I can remember when he was up to about 93, but he didn't have any command, back then. That was his knock.”

In the place of wild thing is a wiser, more cunning side-armer, who slices up the strike zone and leaves batters waving at ghosts.

Peterson reworked Darensbourg into to a sweeping three-quarter side-arm trajectory.

"I changed planes on arm slot," Darensbourg said. "That's the big reason why I'm doing better, I guess. I'm getting a lot more consistent and comfortable with that."

A New Era

"He can throw that looper up there, which makes you go 'whoa'," said  Parrish.

That would be "whoa" as in "0", which was precisely the number of earned runs Darensbourg had allowed in his remarkable streak of 31 straight appearances without giving up an earned run, as the Summer Solstice rolled around.

That's an ERA of 0.00, math majors.

MOPAR to the Showroom Floor

Now, instead of being spare parts, Darensbourg is the hot model on the showroom floor.

Need to pretzel-ize a left-handed batter? Vic shut down Scranton's home-run machine Ryan Howard with the game on the line.

"He's been unbelievable so far," said Parrish. "It seems like he's sort of gone full cycle as a pitcher…Now he doesn't throw quite as hard but he's more reliable. Now he understands what he can do; he locates his sinker. He's always had that breaking ball that's awfully tough on lefties."

With a goose-egg ERA, he’s not bad with righties, either.

How far his re-invented pitching persona will take him remains to be seen. Never the less, he's not about to take anything for granted.

If anything, he said, he feels he owes Peterson a debt of gratitude.

"He told me I should change, and I'm working well," Darensbourg said. "I'm going to have to call him and tell him, 'thank you'."

If Darensbourg gets called up, maybe he should do something to say thank you. It’s not often a 2001 Ford Taurus turns into a 2005 Cadillac STS in a single season.