CLEVELAND -- At some point this weekend, the phone in the visitors’ bullpen at Progressive Field will ring. Bullpen coach Stan Boroski will pick it up, and he’ll repeat Pete Fairbanks’ name back to the Rays’ dugout. Fairbanks will drop whatever debate he’s having, whatever joke he’s making, whatever teammate’s pun he’s ridiculing, and become the person you see when he takes the mound.

The “crazy” eyes. The unhittable stuff. And, above all, the intense competitive fire that’s fueled one of the Majors’ best high-leverage relievers throughout a strikingly dominant stretch this year.

“His presence in the bullpen is the chill side. He's having fun. He's relaxed. One of the ringleaders down there, for sure,” Boroski said. “Just a fun guy to be around. Loves to laugh, loves to joke, has a good time with everything that he does.

“But when it's time to get serious on the mound, then he's very good at doing that as well.”

Fairbanks ended the regular season by making 22 straight scoreless appearances, the second-longest streak in Rays history behind J.P. Howell’s 24 in 2012. The last extra-base hit he allowed was on July 17, when he gave up a homer and a double to the first two batters he faced coming back from a right lat strain.

During his scoreless streak, Fairbanks has faced 77 batters and struck out 36 of them while only walking three. His fastball is averaging 99 mph this year, up from 97.3 mph from 2019-21, and practically nobody is hitting it. He and fellow high-leverage reliever Jason Adam will be critical this month for a Tampa Bay bullpen that’s been thinned by a series of significant injuries.

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What’s behind this run? Fairbanks says it’s a simple mentality that he committed to: Attack the strike zone, get ahead in the count and don’t sabotage yourself. It’s the same message Boroski preaches at every pre-series pitchers meeting, and it’s taken hold -- with incredible results -- for Fairbanks this season.

“It's a very good message,” Fairbanks said. “To take it and to finally internalize it and really try to execute on it, I think, has been a good step for me.”

Fairbanks has always had elite raw stuff and an imposing mound presence -- not just the 6-foot-6, 225-pound frame, but the eyes that you can find on a T-shirt. He’s had great stretches before, especially as part of the Rays’ bullpen “Stable” in the 2020 postseason, but seems to have found another level this year.

“If somebody gets on base, he's surprised -- in a good way,” Boroski said. “He is not arrogant at all, but he is a very confident person. And I think that's reflected on how he goes about his business on the mound. … He takes it personal. He wants to beat the hitter, and that’s that.”

Fairbanks isn’t like that all the time. He doesn’t want to be. Maintaining that level of intensity, he said, “does not lend itself to -- for me, at least -- either, one, a good time, or two, a good headspace.” Constantly being that intense, that locked-in, would burn him out.

So when he’s not pitching, the 28-year-old spends time with his wife, Lydia, and their two young children. He laughs and jokes around as often as anyone in Tampa Bay’s clubhouse. He takes a lot of pride in what he does and in promoting his fellow relievers’ work, occasionally by poking fun at starters for only working once every five days.

Having been with the Rays since 2019, he’s emerged as a leader in the bullpen. When they clinched a fourth straight spot in the postseason last weekend in Houston, he sought out president of baseball operations Erik Neander for the fourth straight year and thanked Neander for trading for him back in July 2019.

Fairbanks’ competitive side isn’t as visible during all that, except perhaps the video-board game at Tropicana Field in which he reels off the names of roughly a dozen and a half movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in about 20 seconds.

“When I need to focus, I'll focus. If we're having fun, laughing, joking, no need to focus on that,” Fairbanks said. “When we flip into competition, I would not say that I'm the same person that I am when I'm doing a crossword puzzle. Unless I'm trying to beat somebody in the crossword puzzle that they started before me. Then it might slip out a little bit.”

But when that bullpen phone rings this weekend …

“Great person, and he's an animal on the mound. That's what you want,” Adam said. “You want somebody out there ready to dominate the opponent, but they're fun to be around sitting in the bullpen for nine innings a day.”