SAN FRANCISCO — The Mets have had to dip into their pitching pool to get by with injuries and suspensions over the last few weeks, but they might finally be finding the end of the depth. Saturday’s 7-4 loss to the San Francisco Giants at Oracle Park was evidence of that.
The Giants hit David Peterson hard right from the start. The left-hander, pitching on only four days rest put the Mets in a 6-0 hole early in the game. There were some missteps, outs on the basepaths and calls that didn’t go the way of the Mets (14-8) in the third game of a four-game series, but two big innings by the Giants ultimately doomed them.
“The left-handed hitters kind of bothered him some this time. That shouldn’t happen normally,” manager Buck Showalter said of Peterson’s performance. “But I’m proud of the way he got through five.”
Brandon Nimmo hit his second home run of the season off San Francisco starter Logan Webb (1-4) to continue his monster road trip. He’s hitting .487 with two home runs, four doubles seven RBI and six walks over the last nine games.
“I’m having a good West Coast trip,” Nimmo said. “Webb pitched well today. He made that mistake with the slider in the middle to me but he did a really good job. Even when we made really hard contact, it was on the ground and he had fielders there. He did a good job of keeping his pitch count down and being able to get deep into the game.”
Daniel Vogelbach had an RBI double. Starling Marte went 2-for-4 and scored Bretty Baty in the eighth with an RBI single to make it 7-3 and Baty scored Mark Canha in the ninth, but the Mets would get no closer.
Despite the resiliency they’ve shown throughout this West Coast trip, the Mets couldn’t claw back this time.
“We battled back and I was proud of the team for that,” Nimmo said. “Made them get (Camilo) Doval in the game. It’s a win to get the closer in the game, so that’s good. You’re not going to win them all but if you can get the closer in that helps. We’ll try and get them tomorrow.”
Three former Mets made life difficult on their former team in the early innings. Michael Conforto went 1-for-4 with an RBI and a run scored, Darin Ruf, who was recently cut after a dismal tenure in New York, went 1-for-4 with an RBI and Wilmer Flores hit a solo home run off Peterson in the fifth to put the Giants (10-13) up 7-2.
Peterson loaded the bases with one out in the first. He got the second out in the form of an RBI sacrifice fly from David Villar. But the big hit came one batter later, with Brandon Crawford hitting a three-run shot into McCovey Cove to put San Francisco up 4-0. It was the first time the Mets had trailed in the series, which is now at 2-1 with one game left to play.
“A couple pitches I’ve been missing with deep in the count when I can’t miss,” he said. “You throw in a good pitch either to get to strike two, or it’s a ball and it’s out of the zone and then I’m coming back in the zone with pitches that are in, those are the ones getting hit.”
The Giants took two more off Peterson in the second. Flores led off the fifth with his third home run of the season. He continues to hit left-handed pitching well, much like he did when he was with the Mets.
“The breaking ball, he got hurt with that today,” Showalter said. “He left some middle-in to the left-handed hitters which he normally doesn’t do. We’ll take the good out of it and he battled his way through five innings, which was good for our team as a whole.”
Peterson was tagged for seven earned runs on seven hits over five innings, with one walk and eight strikeouts. Edwin Uceta tossed three scoreless frames to prevent the Mets from going further into their bullpen.
“What a job Edwin did today out of the bullpen for us,” Showalter said. “It gets us to a really good spot tomorrow and going into the off-day.”
The Mets are in a tough spot when it comes to pitching. They’re without most of their starting staff already and they’ve burned through some of their depth in Triple-A. Peterson is now 1-3 with a 7.36 ERA. He has minor league options remaining and a trip to Triple-A might not be the worst thing for the lefty, but the Mets may not have many options when it comes to configuring the rotation for the next two series.
They’re remaining confident in Peterson’s ability to turn it around.
“He hasn’t been quite as consistent yet but there are better days ahead for him because he’s shown us what he’s capable of doing,” Showalter said.
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