Another week, another stellar pitching meter to complement a less stellar hitting meter. On Friday, the Mets’ bullpen was pushed to its limit and performed admirably. David Peterson followed that up the next day with exactly what the Mets needed in one of the finest performances by a starter this season. Edwin Díaz had a fabulous week and Huascar Brazobán continues to shine week in and week out. If only the hitters would start giving these guys some run support.
One guy who did get a little run support is David Peterson, who notched his third victory of the season on Saturday. And boy did he earn it. It was definitely his best performance of the season and arguably one of the best performances by a Mets starter all season. He held a potent Dodgers lineup to just two runs and, even more importantly, he was economical and managed to go 7 2⁄3 innings on a night when the bullpen desperately needed a rest after Friday’s 13-inning game. Peterson struck out seven and walked two in the outing.
The length the Mets got out of Peterson enabled them to go straight to Edwin Díaz who quickly disposed of all four batters he faced in order to earn his eleventh save of the season. He struck out three of those four batters. It was a fantastic week for Díaz, who earns a fireball for being lights out ever since the Mets made a mechanical adjustment with him a couple of weeks back. Like everybody else, Díaz pitched on Friday night and pitched a scoreless tenth, getting out of a jam thanks to a double play grounder by Max Muncy. Díaz also pitched a scoreless ninth inning to seal Wednesday’s victory in a non-save situation.
On the opposite end of the spectrum from Peterson this week, Clay Holmes had another strong start, but was hung with the tough luck loss because the Mets gave him zero runs of support. Holmes gave up two runs on four hits on Tuesday, striking out five batters and walking three.
Max Kranick finished the game in relief of Holmes on Tuesday with two scoreless innings. He gave up just one baserunner and struck out two in the outing. Kranick has a clean sheet for the week, but his grade this week is affected by the outing he had on Friday, coming in the game in relief of Griffin Canning, who was forced out of the game early because of the lengthy rain delay. Canning pitched two scoreless innings, but then put two runners on in the third before the rain delay. Max Kranick inherited those and a 3-1 count to Freddie Freeman. Freeman walked to load the bases and that walk was charged to Canning. All three runners came around to score on a pair of singles, so though those runs were charged to Canning, Kranick had a hand in the crooked number. To his credit, Kranick did go back out and deliver a scoreless fourth after that. Kranick’s week ended on a high note, as he contributed two hitless innings to Sunday’s victory.
José Buttó followed Kranick on Saturday and he is the only Mets pitcher to really have anything resembling a meltdown this week. The Dodgers scored two runs against Buttó in the fifth and he wasn’t able to finish the inning. Buttó’s other outing this week was successful though. He pitched a scoreless eighth inning in Monday’s loss.
José Castillo came in on Saturday and stopped the bleeding, striking out the lefty Conforto to end the fifth and then retiring all four batters he faced after that. His first full week as a Met went well; like Buttó, he pitched a scoreless inning in Monday’s loss.
Buttó and Castillo’s outings on Monday came in relief of Kodai Senga, who pitched two good games this week, but added one loss and one win to his record. Despite a quality start on Monday in which Senga yielded three runs on five hits, he was hung with the loss because the Mets managed just one run off Hunter Dobbins. Senga struck out five batters and walked three in the outing. On Sunday Senga lasted just 5 1⁄3 innings, in part because he walked four batters, but he limited the damage to just one run in the first inning. Senga noticed that the Dodgers were jumping on his fork ball early, so he made the adjustment and threw more fastballs and settled in later in the game. His season ERA is a sparkling 1.46.
Senga likely would have been allowed to finish the sixth inning on Sunday, but he issued a walk to Max Muncy with one out and Carlos Mendoza had seen enough. Ryne Stanek came in the game and induced a key double play from Andy Pages to end the inning. Stanek also recorded two outs in Friday night’s marathon, retiring both batters he faced. Stanek is back in the green with a clean sheet this week.
With Díaz having pitched two days in a row on Friday and Saturday, Reed Garrett earned his first save of the season on Sunday night with a scoreless ninth inning. He gave up a hit, but struck out two batters in the outing. It was a very good week for Garrett, who earned his eleventh hold of the season with a scoreless eighth inning in Wednesday’s victory. But the standout performance was in Friday’s extra inning game in which Garrett pitched the eleventh and the twelfth and didn’t allow the ghost runner to score in either frame. If the Mets had managed to walk that game off, Garrett would have likely been the hero of the day.
Génesis Cabrera certainly deserves some props too for his contributions to Friday’s lengthy extra inning affair. Like Garrett, he also contributed two scoreless innings, striking out two batters in the process.
But as it stands, Huascar Brazobán unfortunately took the loss on Friday night, as the dam finally broke in the 13th. This is to take nothing away from Brazobán, who still gets good marks this week. He has been used heavily and was the last man available on Friday night; it was clear Carlos Mendoza did not want to use him in that game. But the offense’s ineptitude with runners in scoring position left him with no choice and Brazobán gave up two runs (only one earned, due to the ghost runner) to seal the Mets’ fate. But until that moment, Brazobán was quickly heading for fireball territory because of how fantastic he’s been. He has become one of Carlos Mendoza’s most trusted relievers and he has earned it. He earned the win in Wednesday’s game with 2 1⁄3 scoreless innings of work complete with four strikeouts.
That outing came in relief of Tylor Megill, who struck out a whopping ten Red Sox and went toe-to-toe with ace Garrett Crochet. The problem is that Megill lasted just 4 2⁄3 innings and therefore did not factor into the decision. If Megill had been able to get through the fifth, he would have earned good marks for the week, but he let the inning balloon on him a bit. However, obviously the outing was still a massive improvement over his other starts this month and hopefully he is back on the right track.