It was an ugly couple of weeks for the New York Mets’ starting pitchers, while the bullpen continued to come through. New York starters got shelled repeatedly, and the longest-tenured Met, David Peterson, was shipped out to greener pastures before he could have another clunker performance in the Orange and Blue. Freddy Peralta had a start so bad it might have cost him money in his upcoming free agency while also hurting his trade value, and Nolan McLean looked awesome and then not so awesome.
The
usual disclaimer: this meter does not reflect Monday’s game and only covers the period from June 15-June 28.
| Player | Last week | This week |
|---|---|---|
| Huascar Brazobán, RHP |  |
 |
| Sean Manaea, LHP | |
|
| Nolan McLean, RHP | |
|
| A.J. Minter, LHP | |
|
| Tobias Myers, RHP |  |
/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/8556885/Poop_Emoji_2_grande.png) |
| Freddy Peralta, RHP | |
|
| Cionel Pérez, LHP | |
|
| Jonathan Pintaro, RHP | |
|
| Brooks Raley, LHP | |
|
| Christian Scott, RHP |  |
|
| Kodai Senga, RHP | |
|
| Austin Warren, RHP | |
|
| Luke Weaver, RHP | |
 |
| Devin Williams, RHP | |
|
Let’s start with the worst start of Freddy Peralta‘s career, where he gave up 10 runs on 10 hits. Of course, it came against the Philadelphia Phillies, who spectacularly padded their stats in a 15-3 loss for the Mets. Kyle Schwarber hit two home runs in one inning off Peralta, both nearly identical upper deck bombs. Bryce Harper hit for the cycle that night, getting his home run, double, and single against Peralta. Brandon Sproat, the young pitcher shipped out by New York when acquiring Peralta in the off-season, posted six shutout innings with 10 strikeouts for the Milwaukee Brewers just three nights after Peralta’s meltdown. Talk about adding insult to injury. Fortunately for Peralta, he looked more like himself in his next start, pitching 5.2 innings with zero earned runs against the Cubs. Unfortunately for Peralta, the defense let him down repeatedly as the Cubs plated three unearned runs with the right-hander on the mound.
Sean Manaea knows a little about the defense letting him down in his late June starts. Manaea recently worked his way back into getting solo starts without an opener, with mixed results. In both starts, errors haunted Manaea in losses to the Cubs and the Phillies. Manaea gave up two earned runs to Chicago and three to Philadelphia, but errors led to an unearned run in each of his starts. Those errors forced Manaea to work harder than he otherwise would have. Getting the veteran arm a start with clean defensive play behind him would be nice.
When you think Nolan McLean is back to being the staff ace of the present and future, he comes out and gets smacked around. He was brilliant against the Cincinnati Reds in seven innings with zero earned runs and nine strikeouts. His next time out, the Cubs teed off with home runs from Michael Busch and Dansby Swanson as McLean gave up six earned runs in a 10-3 loss. McLean wasn’t the only pitcher who got crushed by the Cubs that night. Later on, Jonathan Pintaro gave up a grand slam to Swanson before eventually being sent down to Triple-A.
Kodai Senga returned from the IL and looked a lot like he did before he left, not that great. Senga gave up four runs in four innings in a loss to the Reds, then gave up seven more runs in his next time out against the Cubs. The performance against Chicago drove Senga’s ERA briefly above 10.00. He came out of the bullpen against the Phillies and looked better, giving up two runs across five innings with four strikeouts. The problem was that those two runs came on a go-ahead home run from Schwarber that put the Phillies up for good. Cionel Pérez was the opener in that loss to Philadelphia, where he pitched a scoreless inning. Perez has rattled off three straight scoreless outings across his last 5.1 innings, but he gave up four runs in the two games previous to his scoreless streak. Tobias Myers, who was used in tandem with Senga multiple times, continued his disappointing season, giving up 14 earned runs across his last 8.2 innings pitched.
Christian Scott came off the IL and gave up two earned runs over 4.2 innings and struck out six against the Phillies. Scott was relieved by A.J. Minter, who pitched one and a third scoreless innings in the 6-2 victory. Minter has continued to raise his trade value with five scoreless outings in relief in the last two weeks. He has yet to give up an earned run in 12.1 innings pitched this season. That’s nothing compared to what Luke Weaver has been up to. Weaver extended his scoreless inning streak to 23 innings, the longest active streak in MLB. Five of those scoreless innings came in the last two weeks, including three outings where he struck out the side.
Devin Williams registered a save and four outings without an earned run. Still, four unearned runs came home thanks to the Mets’ defense letting him down. Huascar Brazobán continued his strong season, giving up one run across six innings of work. Unfortunately, that run put the Philadelphia Phillies up for good in a 2-1 loss. Still, his ERA (1.94) remains spectacular.
Austin Warren rebounded from a subpar start to June, posting four scoreless outings in five tries. The lone run he gave up came on a solo home run to Harper—no shame in that. Brooks Raley‘s season took an unfortunate downturn after he was responsible for back-to-back losses in his last two outings. He gave multiple extra-base hits, including a triple to Swanson in a loss to the Cubs. The next night against Chicago, Raley was asked to hold a 3-3 tie in the 10th inning, but Pete Crow-Armstrong doubled in the ghost runner Matt Shaw in a 4-3 loss.
