SAN FRANCISCO — Throughout his career, David Peterson has had a knack for finding shortcuts through traffic, but the Giants’ aggression put up a roadblock for the left-hander on Thursday night.
The rush was on early and often for the Giants in the teams’ series opener.
Peterson gave up nine hits in the first three innings and the Mets offense continued to go into hiding in a 7-2 loss to the Giants in front of 32,073 fans on Thursday night at Oracle Park.
After a three-game series where the Mets offense could only manage five runs, unable to capitalize when their pitching staff limited the Cardinals to only seven runs, the Giants offense buried the Mets in their opener.
The Mets have now fell in three straight games as they dropped to 3-4.
“Back at it tomorrow. We’ve got Nolan (McLean). Back at it tomorrow,” Carlos Mendoza said. “We’ve still got an opportunity to win a series and that’s what we’ll do.”
After Peterson made his debut against the Pirates last week, Carlos Mendoza commended the left-hander for getting the ball on the ground and slowing the game down with runners on base.
The Giants did not give him that chance.
With two outs in the first inning, Luis Arraez pulled a fastball off the right-field wall for an RBI triple. Matt Chapman took a high changeup the other way into the corner for an RBI double. And Peterson conflated those mistakes with a rare fielding error when he dropped a flip from Mark Vientos and Chapman scored to make it 3-1.
“I don’t think the aggressive nature of the swings kind of altered anything. I think early in the game, there were pitches that I was trying to get down in the zone and I left them up and they were able to take advantage,” Peterson said. “Things started to straighten out when we started getting the sinker and changeup down in the zone.”
In his debut, Peterson managed to toss 5⅓ scoreless innings despite allowing six hits and walking a pair of batters. In the series opener on Thursday, he only lasted 4⅓ innings and gave up five earned runs. The Giants added one with three straight singles to lead off the third inning followed by back-to-back sacrifice flies from Jung Hoo Lee and Harrsion Bader.
“I thought they had some really good at-bats. They were aggressive. They had a good plan and they executed,” Mendoza said. “It looked like they forced him up in the zone and they were super aggressive, especially early in counts and they made solid contact there.”
When it appeared the Mets were on the verge of breaking out of their offensive malaise, they slipped back in.
In the opening inning, Bo Bichette lined an RBI double to left field to move the Mets ahead 1-0. Mark Vientos answered the Giants’ three-run first inning with a solo home run on a knee-high slider by Robbie Ray.
But Ray, who threw 59 pitches in the first three innings, managed to pick up seven more outs and finished with two earned runs allowed in 5⅓ innings.
“I thought we had some baserunners, we just couldn’t put a lot together,” Mendoza said.
The Mets did not put up much of a fight from there, with Francisco Alvarez grounding into a seventh-inning double play and Bichette lining into another in the top of the eighth. Bichette had some hard luck with a third-inning fly ball to deep center field gloved by Bader at the top of the wall.
The Mets were 0-for-3 with runners in scoring position and left four runners on base.
“This is baseball, so things go up down, not that you’re OK with it,” Bichette said. “We need to figure out a way to be better. It’s baseball, so we’ll show up tomorrow and do it again.”
If there was one positive for the Mets, Mendoza did not need to dip deep into his bullpen after the team played its third extra-inning game of the young season on Wednesday.
Sean Manaea, who had thrown 1⅓ innings on March 29, stepped into a true bulk role on Thursday night. He threw 74 pitches across 3⅔ innings and allowed one earned run on a sixth-inning solo shot to Rafael Devers.
“I thought it’s a positive step there. I thought he was aggressive. The fastball had life. Got some swing-and-misses. For him to finish the game and save the bullpen is huge.”
Manaea’s fastball touched 91.3 mph after he had lingered in the high-80s through spring and his first outing. He said he has made some incremental changes to make sure his arm slot doesn’t get too low and he’s able to drive through with his lower body.
After stranding five combined runners between the fifth and seventh innings, Manaea closed with a 1-2-3 eighth inning with two ground balls and a lazy fly ball to Juan Soto in left.
“Just free and easy and just throwing all my pitches with confidence,” Manaea said. “I threw some left-on-left changeups, found my sweeper, sinker was really, really good tonight. Threw a cutter. I think in the eighth inning, if felt really good.”
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: David Peterson, Mets pitching join struggles as losing streak grows
