NEW YORK -- Ask Mets officials about Freddy Peralta, and they will point to the quality of his stuff, the sharpness of his arsenal, the vivaciousness of his personality. There’s a reason why the Mets targeted Peralta over the offseason. He’s a good Major League pitcher. On his best days, he’s an exceptional one.
The caveat, which tends to be whispered more than shouted, is that Peralta rarely gives the Mets much length. Through six starts, he’s averaging 5 1/3 innings per outing. Last season, in a career year, his average length of start was almost exactly the same. Peralta has not recorded an out in the seventh inning in more than nine months.
On Friday at Citi Field, that inefficiency came back to haunt the Mets when Peralta needed 95 pitches to record 17 outs. Those were 5 2/3 effective innings for Peralta, who allowed just two runs. But the briefness of his outing forced the Mets to turn in the sixth inning to Sean Manaea, who allowed two more Rockies to score in a 4-3 defeat.
“He’ll get there,” manager Carlos Mendoza said of Peralta. “He’s an ace. I’m not worried about that. I trust him, and I know that he’s more than capable to go long in the games.”
Peralta took the loss, allowing an RBI groundout from TJ Rumfield and a run-scoring double by Jake McCarthy to fall to 1-3 as a Met.
“The only stuff that I didn’t like about tonight was that I couldn’t finish the sixth,” Peralta said. “But other than that, I feel good about it.”
Most of the blame on this night should go to the offense, which could not square up veteran right-hander Michael Lorenzen (season ERA entering the evening: 7.48). The team’s continued reliance on traditional starters in the bullpen, such as Manaea, also came back to haunt them.
But it’s worth noting that the Mets acquired Peralta to be their ace, and aces -- even in today’s game -- tend to pitch longer. Last year, in the best season of his career, Peralta ranked 24th in the Majors in innings. He’s tied for 15th right now.
Since 2023, the first year Peralta made 30 starts, he has averaged 5.43 innings per game. Among the 55 pitchers with at least 75 starts over that stretch, Peralta is tied for 41st with teammate David Peterson. Only one of the pitchers lower than him on the list -- Yusei Kikuchi in 2024 -- received a single Cy Young vote during that time.
Asked why he may be faltering so often in the sixth, Peralta said he can lose a bit of focus because he is thinking about wanting to finish that inning. Mendoza agreed that he is “maybe trying to be too perfect.” It’s something that he’s working on.
“I put pressure on myself just thinking about it,” Peralta said.
For Peralta, this is not a crisis. But for a Mets team trying to ease the strain off what has been, statistically, a roughly average bullpen (and seemingly getting worse by the day), a little more from their Opening Day starter could go a long way.
Said Peralta: “I know for sure that a lot of those are going to come soon.”