Freddy Peralta wasn’t at his best in his Mets debut yesterday. In five innings, he gave up four earned runs, struck out seven, didn’t walk anyone, and surrendered two home runs. He threw 80 pitches in the process, and the relatively high-stress nature of some of those innings combined with the lopsided score in the Mets’ favor entering the sixth inning made it a fairly easy decision for Carlos Mendoza to pull him from the game.
Aside from his temporarily unsightly 7.20 ERA, much of what Peralta did
yesterday lines up with what he’s done over the past few seasons with the Brewers. Many of his starts in Milwaukee saw him pitch fix or six innings, he’s always had very good strikeout rates, and while they aren’t necessarily his Achilles heel, Peralta will give up the occasional home run. With slightly different wind conditions yesterday, perhaps he would’ve given up just one of the two home runs and would be sporting a 3.60 ERA this morning instead.
It was encouraging, though, that Peralta didn’t issue any walks in the start. The Mets have struggled mightily with walk rate for the past couple of seasons, and Peralta has generally been right around league average or just slightly worse when it comes to his walk rate.
Ideally, Peralta finds a way to go a bit deeper into games this year and comes close to matching the excellent 2.70 ERA he had with the Brewers last year. And even if he doesn’t do either of those things or only does one of them, there’s plenty to look forward to for a pitcher who’s made 30, 32, and 33 starts in each of the past three seasons, respectively. If the Mets find themselves on track for a playoff spot over the next few months, there will be plenty of time to figure out who their ace is.
