Club facing crossroads with a struggling Peterson
The Mets are in a bind: Continue to use David Peterson in the rotation to give their starters an extra day of rest every week, or send the struggling southpaw to Triple-a Syracuse.
It might be time for the Mets to abandon the six-man rotation, at least temporarily.
It’s clear that Peterson needs to go down to Triple-a and work out whatever it is that isn’t working. His 8.08 ERA makes that obvious. It would be the highest in the league but he hasn’t even pitched enough innings to qualify. After another bad outing in Washington on Monday resulted in his sixth loss of the season, manager Buck Showalter insisted that Peterson hadn’t lost any confidence. Peterson himself seemed hopeful that he would figure it out and turn his season around.
“He knows he’s capable of pitching well up here,” Showalter said Monday after the Mets lost the fourth game of a four-game series at Nationals Park. “He feels good physically. It’s been really frustrating for everybody.”
Peterson thinks it’s only a matter of fixing his slider. And maybe it is, but the Mets can’t afford to let him try to work through it at the big league level when there is little room for error and they’re in fourth place in the NL East standings.
But the Mets seem to think that the key to keeping their starting rotation healthy is to give them extra rest. Righthander Carlos Carrasco is set to make a return this weekend and the team has not committed to pitching either him or Max Scherzer on regular rest. They can’t call up left-hander Joey Lucchesi again without an injury this turn through so that would mean keeping Peterson around and giving him another go this weekend against the Cleveland Guardians.
They have Justin Verlander, Kodai Senga and then, most likely, Tylor Megill lined up for three games against the league-leading Tampa Bay Rays this week. Megill hasn’t exactly pitched well this season either (4-2, 4.02) but he’s been more effective than Peterson and the Mets have won in five of his eight starts.