A strong first half has turned David Peterson into a candidate to make the National League All-Star team.
Circumstances for the New York Mets suddenly are turning him into their ace.
Peterson (5-3, 2.98 ERA) will look to steady the Mets’ reeling rotation on Friday evening when he starts the team’s opener of a three-game series against the host Pittsburgh Pirates.
The left-hander is slated to oppose Pirates right-hander Mitch Keller (1-10, 4.02).
The Mets earned their second straight victory on Thursday after five pitchers combined on a three-hitter in a 4-0 win over the visiting Atlanta Braves.
The victory likely was costly for the Mets, who saw right-hander Griffin Canning suffer a lower left leg injury in the third inning. Manager Carlos Mendoza said following the game that Canning will undergo testing but that the team believes the injury is to his Achilles.
Canning likely will become the third Mets starter to hit the injured list this month. Kodai Senga is sidelined with a strained right hamstring while Tylor Megill has a right elbow sprain.
Peterson, who has allowed three runs or less in 13 of his 15 starts this season, and right-hander Clay Holmes are the only remaining healthy members of the Mets’ season-opening rotation. But Holmes, who transitioned to starting after spending most of his first seven seasons as a late-inning reliever, already has thrown a career-high 88 innings.
“Nobody’s going to feel sorry for us,” Mendoza said. “We’ll find a way. We’ll find a way. Guys will step up. Our mentality is, ‘What do we need to do today?’ Pretty confident in the guys that we’ve got in that room.”
The Pirates, meanwhile, were off Thursday, one day after losing 4-2 to the host Milwaukee Brewers in the rubber match of a three-game series.
Friday will be another chance to find out if Pittsburgh interim manager Don Kelly’s discipline of center fielder Oneil Cruz earlier this week had the desired effect. Cruz was pulled from Tuesday’s game after failing to run out a double-play grounder in the eighth inning.
Cruz also showed a lack of urgency in a 6-2 loss to the Texas Rangers last Friday after he didn’t chase the ball following a first-inning single by Sam Haggerty skipped under his glove. Right fielder Adam Frazier chased the ball down, but Josh Smith scored all the way from first while Haggerty ended up at third.
On Wednesday, Cruz failed to make a sliding catch of Eric Haase’s third-inning RBI bloop double, but he immediately got back up and retrieved the ball.
“I think he understood from last week against Texas, and made it clear (Tuesday), that that’s not going to be tolerated,” Kelly said. “We need more. Not more hits, not more home runs — that will come with the work — but the effort and the way we go about it. And I think he heard it.”
Peterson took the defeat on Sunday after he allowed a season-high five runs over four innings as the Mets fell to the Philadelphia Phillies 7-1. He is 0-0 with a 3.31 ERA in four career games (three starts) against the Pirates.
Keller took the loss last Saturday after giving up three runs (two earned) over 5 2/3 innings as the Pirates were edged by the Rangers 3-2. He is 3-2 with a 2.12 ERA in five career starts against the Mets.