SAN FRANCISCO — In his first four starts of the season, David Peterson’s results followed a pattern: good, bad, good, bad. The pattern now has been broken — and the Mets hope that doesn’t also apply to Peterson.
The left-hander had a second straight rough outing, getting jumped in the first inning and never recovering Saturday as the Mets lost 7-4 to the Giants at Oracle Park.
The defeat was the Mets’ second in nine games on their 10-game California trip.
Over five innings, Peterson allowed seven earned runs on seven hits, with eight strikeouts and one walk.
It ranked as maybe the Mets’ worst starting pitching performance of the season, a day after they received their best when Joey Lucchesi delivered seven shutout innings for the win in his first major league appearance in almost two years.
On Tuesday, Peterson allowed six earned runs over six innings against the Dodgers.
The difference that night was that the Mets’ bats saved him by producing eight runs, allowing him to escape with a win.
Given the state of their rotation — Justin Verlander, Carlos Carrasco and Jose Quintana are on the injured list and Max Scherzer won’t return from a 10-game suspension until May 1 — the Mets have little choice but to stick with Peterson and hope he regains the form he showed last season, when he was a dependable fill in.
David Peterson allowed all seven runs that the Giants scored Saturday. Getty Images“There’s two sides of the coin: I feel good with my stuff and there’s good results in there,” Peterson said. “And then there’s just some things that are hurting me right now and those need to be cleaned up and we’ve got some guys down and so as a part of this rotation I need to be better and hold my end of the bargain.”
Peterson had eight hard-hit balls against him Saturday, according to Statcast.
He got buried early, surrendering a three-run homer in the first inning to Brandon Crawford that gave the Giants a 4-0 lead.
Thairo Estrada reached on an infield hit and Michael Conforto singled before Wilmer Flores walked to load the bases. David Villar’s sacrifice fly brought in a run and Crawford followed with a no-doubt homer to right field.
“I opened up and it was a complete miss right in the heart of the zone,” Peterson said. “That was one where I had thrown a slider and got a missed swing out of the zone and then I came back in the zone with an uncompetitive slider and he hit it.”
From manager Buck Showalter’s perspective, Peterson’s troubles against the Giants’ left-handed hitters might have been the most disturbing.
Brandon Crawford launched a three-run homer in the first inning for the Giants. Getty Images“That shouldn’t happen normally, but I am proud of the way he got through five [innings],” Showalter said. “The breaking ball, he got hurt with that today. He left some middle-in for left-handed hitters, which he normally doesn’t do.”
The cavalry was relatively quiet against Logan Webb and the Giants’ bullpen after the Mets had scored nine and seven runs in winning the first two games of this series.
Daniel Vogelbach’s two-out RBI double in the second got a run back, but the Giants jumped on Peterson again in the bottom of the inning to score twice.
Darin Ruf delivered an RBI single for the Giants’ third hit of the inning and Conforto’s fielder’s choice brought in the other run.
Brandon Nimmo’s sizzling road trip continued with a homer in the third inning that sliced the Giants’ lead to 6-2.
The blast was the second in four games for Nimmo, who entered play with a .525/.568/.725 slash line over his previous nine games.
Peterson’s troubles continued in the fifth when Wilmer Flores’ hit a leadoff homer.
The blast was the fifth allowed by Peterson over his last two starts.
Flores jumped on a four-seam fastball and cleared the left-field fence for his third homer of the season.
Starling Marte brought in the Mets’ third run with a single in the eighth.
Marte returned to the lineup after missing the previous two games with a sore neck.
Brett Baty’s single in the ninth produced the game’s final run.
“We battled back and I was proud of the team for that,” Nimmo said. “We made them get [Camilo] Doval in the game, which is a win anytime you get the closer in the game. You’re not going to win them all, but if you can get that closer in that helps, and we’ll try to get them [Sunday].”
