David Peterson received a vote of confidence from David Stearns last week amid his sluggish start to the regular season.
Taking the ball on Monday night, though, the Mets’ lefty was roughed up again.
Peterson did well to limit the damage against, but found himself facing traffic from the very start against the high-power two-time defending champion Dodgers.
He hit Shohei Ohtani opening the bottom of the first, then allowed the next three batters to reach on two walks and an RBI single, before pitching coach Justin Willard came out to talk.
Whatever the message, it certainly worked, as Peterson struck out the next three batters to dance his way out of danger with just one run on the board.
He picked up two more punchouts, one on Ohtani, in a perfect second.
“Your back is against the wall,” he said. “Bases loaded in the first inning, you’re just trying to execute one pitch at a time — was able to slow myself down, get in a better rhythm with my mechanics and go forward from there.”
The Dodgers would make Peterson pay for two walks in the third, though, as Andy Pages lifted a three-run homer to deep left to make it a 4-0 ballgame.
He then worked around a ground-rule double in the fourth, and finished his day gutting his way through a second and third with one out jam in the bottom of the fifth.
Peterson’s ERA is up to 6.61 after allowing four runs on four walks and five hits with seven strikeouts in the loss.
While the results still aren’t where the Mets need them to be, they were encouraged by how his stuff looked.
“Stuff-wise, it was probably the best we’ve seen,” Carlos Mendoza said.
“I felt a lot better,” Peterson added. “I felt like I was able to get my sinker down, changeup I was missing down, slider was consistently at the bottom. Left the one curveball up, but I felt a lot better about my stuff.
“Would obviously not like to give up the three-run homer and some of the free passes, but overall it was a step in the right direction — now we learn from it, clean things up we need to clean up, and move on to the next one.”
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