☀️ GOOD MORNING:
If I’ve said it once, I’ve probably said it 15 times: no player represents this franchise’s turn towards better days more than David Peterson. Because as much as this team is about star power, it’s about stories like him.
A story of an arm that doesn’t throw the nastiest stuff in baseball, but has always flashed the potential to be a quality starter if he could put everything together in an orderly way, hitting his spots, measuring his command, avoiding the dreaded home run ball.
He did it during the team’s breakout 2022 campaign under Steve Cohen, pitching to a 3.83 ERA over 28 games (19 starts), but he still had games when his fastball just wouldn’t land where he wanted it to, and often landed on the other side of the fence.
👋 Meet the new and improved Peterson, who for the second straight season is leading his team to victories on more nights than not. He is commanding his sinker and four-seamer as counterweights to each other against righties and lefties, and his secondary pitches, particularly his slider, is turning into an asset.
We can talk about the underlying numbers, how Peterson allows plenty of hard contact, or we can point to the results: when Peterson pitches, the Mets win, and that’s mostly because he is making the right pitches at the right time, limiting walks and keeping the ball in the ballpark.
▶️ He did all of these things on Wednesday night when he became the first left-handed Mets pitcher to throw a complete game shutout since Steven Matz in 2019, and only the fourth pitcher in the majors this season to accomplish that feat without issuing a walk (the first Met to do so since Jacob deGrom in 2021).
It was a 5–0 spread, but there are few things more exciting in modern baseball than seeing a starter actually climb the mound in the ninth inning and look as dominant as ever in slamming the door. It took Peterson nine pitches, around the amount manager Carlos Mendoza was going to allow him, to retire the final three batters.
Home cookin’: The Amazins are 4–0 in Peterson’s starts at home this season, and have won eight straight at home with him on the mound, three shy of David Cone’s record in 1989. If you’re looking for the best night to grab a ticket to go to Citi, look for when the tall left-hander is starting, the team is 14–3 in Queens in Peterson starts dating back to last year.
🔥 As a team, the Mets are red hot. They have won five in a row and 14 of their last 17, putting them a season-high 20 games over .500 for the first time since the end of the 2022 season when they won 101 games. They are on pace to eclipse that total with 105 wins in 2025.
☕️ Grab your coffee for your morning dose of Mets Fix!
🚀 BLAST OFF
With Peterson putting up zeroes, the offense didn’t need to do much, but Juan Soto and Brandon Nimmo made sure there was plenty of breathing room.
Batting together at the top of the order, they drove in four of the team’s five runs via the long ball. For Nimmo, it was his second multi-HR game against the Nationals this season, and by adding two more round trippers to his career ledger, he passed Edgardo Alfonzo and tied Kevin McReynolds (122) for the 12th-most dingers in franchise history.
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