ST. PETERSBURG – The book on Rays first baseman Carlos Pena in the past was that he read too much into everything. He was a thinker, not a player, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get out of his own way.

At best, Pena was an above average fielder and a streaky hitter with limited power. At worst, he was a case of wasted potential. Then he joined the Rays before the 2007 season and everything changed.

Pena found his power.

“Our intent is not to win the World Series. That’s so many steps ahead of what we are trying to do,” he said. “Our intent is to play within ourselves, to be focused on the task at hand and only that. If we can do that, it’s a victory. It’s simple but it’s powerful. Simplicity is power.”

The power of simplicity has propelled the Rays to the World Series and Pena into a comfort zone he never plans to leave. Gone is the anxious Pena that bounced around from Texas to Oakland to Detroit to Boston and almost every Minor League stop in between and in his place is a mature Pena that has figured out how the game works.

“There were times in my career when I look back when I was younger and I say ‘Man, I had it for that moment,’ but then something happened and I was trying hard again and I wasn’t having fun,” he said. “I was working too hard. It’s one of those things that embedded in you when you are a kid, the whole ‘no pain, no gain’ mentality.  But baseball is graceful and you can’t force things.”

Pena hit 46 home runs in 2007 and won the American League Comeback Player of the Year. He hit 31 home runs and drove in 131 RBIs during the regular season in 2008 and is hitting .333 during the postseason.

He is making it look easy. It’s not.

“The hard work is really making it simple,” he said. “The hard work is learning how to not work too hard. But it’s easier to go the other way and go crazy trying to do more than you are capable of doing. The hard part is having trust in your ability.”

A winning record and a successful season don’t hurt trust levels.

A clubhouse full of young players and a deep-thinking manager like Joe Maddon also make it easy for Carlos to be easy-going Carlos. Maddon wants his players to embrace every player like a family member and savor each moment in the moment, then let it go. It’s the exact opposite of what Pena used to do when he was with other clubs and he would lose sleep worrying about the present, future and past.

“He just needed the right situation at the right time of his life to have all of this coming forward and I think that’s what you are seeing,” Maddon said. “Carlos is a very talented baseball player but he’s an exceptional person. It’s not surprising at all.”

Pena has not completely changed. He says he stills stays up at night but now he lies awake in a bed of gratitude.

“I’m very happy that every moment, every breath, every second that went by in that celebration after we won, that I enjoyed it to the max,” he said. “I’m so happy I allowed myself to do that. We want to be as present as possible. We want to stay in the moment and nothing else matters. It’s easier said than done but it’s so much fun and so satisfying.”

And so memorable. Pena said he’ll never forget the feeling of exhilaration after defeating the Red Sox, his childhood team, in Game 7 of the American League Championship Series to earn a spot in the World Series because of the celebration that followed.

After the final out, the Rays ran, screamed and dog-piled each other on the mound like school boys.

“We weren’t trying to play it cool. We weren’t saying ‘We have to be professionals about this,’” Pena said. “I’m sorry. This is my childhood dream coming true and I’m going to enjoy it and I don’t care what people say. If anything, it’s refreshing to see 30-year old men crying and cheering like little boys like we just won the Little League World Series.”

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