David Peterson is fighting to crack the Mets’ starting rotation this season, but performances like Sunday’s aren’t likely to help him get there.
Peterson was up and down during Sunday’s matchup with the Cardinals, allowing three runs on five hits, two walks and one strikeout in 4.0 innings.
“There’s plenty to take away from today,” Peterson told reporters over Zoom once his day was over. “Plenty to work on going forward and looking forward to the next start.”
“Some hard hit balls against him, On and off with his command,” Luis Rojas said after the game. “But he’s working on stuff, you could see that he got some swing and misses on his changeup, from his slider, the fastball velocity is the one that we like seeing. … Stuff is there, I thought location wise was where he just didn’t execute at times.”
The lefty made nine starts for the Mets during the 2020 season and finished the year with a 3.44 ERA and 40 strikeouts in 49.2 innings.
“I wanted to come into spring training as ready as I could be, and I feel like I’m in a good position, but there’s definitely some things to work on before we get out of spring,” Peterson said.
“I think in the offseason, looking forward to a full season and trying to get prepared for that was what the goal for me was,” Peterson added about his training last season. “Obviously 50 innings is not a lot, and I want to be able to help this team win and contribute a lot. And so I think that mindset started in the beginning of the offseason for me of coming in and being able to build up and get ready for a bigger workload this year.”
Jacob deGrom, Marcus Stroman, Carlos Carrasco and Taijuan Walker figure to be the first four starters, which means that fifth spot is up for grabs right now.
Opening Day is just a couple of weeks away, so we’ll know the answer to that fifth spot question soon enough.