NUNTSVILLE, Ala. -- Imagine being 11 years old and you've never even had a baseball glove of your own. You've developed your throwing skills with a lemon.

Still, baseball could be your ticket. It's the perfect opportunity on an island where the sport is a way of life, but also the best way to escape the difficult life on the island.

Down the road, you might be able to support your family, to supplement the meager earnings of your fisherman father, to help the three siblings. To do so, you'd have to move across the country, to the largest city, to say goodbye to your immediate family and move in with an uncle.

That was the path taken by Wily Peralta, half his life ago.

Now 22, he is the Huntsville Stars' best pitcher. On the heels of his two-hitter Sunday against Carolina, he's been named the Southern League Pitcher of the Week and the Milwaukee Brewers' Minor League Pitcher of the Month.

He's 9-6 with a 3.24 ERA going into Saturday night's start against Tennessee at Joe Davis Stadium. He hasn't lost since June 4 and in his last nine starts he's allowed only nine runs and 37 hits in 56 innings, striking out 53.

It could be because "I've been working hard on my mechanics," Peralta said.

It could be because "he's learned not to be so violent with his delivery," said manager Mike Guerrero.

It could be just because Peralta finally has let his Mohawk haircut grow back out.

Or, it could be because he's finally, truly healthy. He hasn't had the best of luck. Tommy John surgery in 2007, then a hamstring pull and root canal early this season.

He's now the Wily Peralta annointed as one of Milwaukee's top prospects, though, "I don't think about people talking about how I have to do good to be in the big leagues. I go out there and do my routine and get people out. And some da I'm going to have the opportunity."

Peralta grew up in Samana, Domincan Republic, a little finger of a peninsula on the northeast side of the island. To develop his baseball skills, he moved to Santo Domingo to live with his uncle Marcio. He gave him his first glove, a Rawlings model so generic it didn't even have a player's autograph etched in the pocket.

When he grew homesick, he'd phone his mother Milody, who still never has seen him pitch a game.

They'd talk and she'd have to encourage him, fighting back her own sadness.

"Do you like to play baseball?" she'd ask.

"Yes, Mama."

"Keep playing. Keep going to school."

And that's what Wily did.

"From home to school to the field, from home to school to the field," Peralta said, sharing his daily routine.

"It's not unusual," Guerrero said of players leaving home so young. "You do what you have to do. Baseball is a way to provide. Nobody has it easy. When you don't have food on your table, you do what you have to."

One day, when Peralta was 14 or 15, a Brewers' scout named Fernando Arango saw him working out in the outfield and noticed a powerful throwing arm. He met Peralta and followed up when Wily turned 16, of legal age to sign a contract.

Now, barely 22, here he is, just 11 years removed from a glove made of cardboard and lemons to play catch, and every scout in baseball knows his name.

"An amazing story," Guerrero said. "And a story where the ending hasn't been written yet."

Contact Mark McCarter at mark.mccarter@htimes.com