David Peterson was three outs away from putting together another stellar outing in the Mets’ series opening matchup with the Baltimore Orioles on Monday night.
After working his way through six terrific innings, the southpaw came back out for the top of the seventh against the bottom of the order, and he immediately ran into trouble as Ryan Mountcastle lined a leadoff double down the right field line.
Peterson almost danced his way out of danger, but a two out balk with Mountcastle on third, and a Ramon Urias solo homer on the very next pitch resulted in two more runs on his ledger before his night came to an end.
“That’s my fault, I should’ve stepped off and reset the clock there,” he said postgame. “Then I threw a fastball down in the zone on the balk, he saw that, and we threw a sinker and he was able to hit it out. We should’ve changed things up, that’s on me.”
Still, Peterson kept the Mets in the game against a tough offense and finished with a strong final line of three runs allowed (two of earned) on six hits while walking one and striking out eight across seven innings of work.
Despite the rough finish, Carlos Mendoza had nothing but good things to say about the consistent positive efforts he’s been seeing from the former first-round pick.
“I thought he was really good,” he said. “He’s been very good for us but I thought today was one of his best outings of the year. His misses were close, he used all of his pitches and just stayed on the attack against a good hitting team over there.”
Peterson certainly has been very good since returning from a two-month absence due to a hip injury, as Francisco Alvarez’s walk-off homer pushed the Mets to their 11th victory in the 14 games he’s started this season.
And he’s been particularly dominant of late as New York’s looking to keep themselves in the thick of things in the NL Wild Card race, pitching to a 1.43 ERA and recording three quality starts across four August outings.
“I’m just going in with a plan and executing,” Peterson said. “I’ve been able to utilize all of my pitches. I’m learning from my previous start how to get better for my next one, and I’m just continuing to try to give the team a chance to win every time I take the ball.”
Source Agencies
