Freddy Peralta said following his last outing that the thought of working deep into games has come into his mind at times early on this season.
While the right-hander had struggled to complete six-innings over his first six outings in a Mets uniform, Carlos Mendoza said that he wasn’t too concerned.
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“He’s an ace, he’ll get there,” the skipper emphasized.
And just five days later Peralta was able to get there, as he delivered the Mets six efficient innings in what ended as a disappointing series finale loss to the Nationals.
It wasn’t always pretty, though, as he was hurt by his own error at one point.
After issuing a leadoff walk in the second, Peralta botched a comebacker which could’ve been a routine double play had it been let go to the shortstop or fielded cleanly.
Instead, he threw it away and the Nats scratched across the first two runs of the game.
“You know, mistakes happen,” he said. “I knew that [Ronny] Mauricio was behind me but the reaction of the plat that I had there was just trying to catch the ball and then I felt stupid because I made the error, but things happen.”
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Washington struck again in the third, but then Peralta settled in nicely after the Mets’ offense picked him up, retiring the next eight before running into trouble in that elusive sixth inning.
Thoughts of those struggles began to creep back in as he issued back-to-back walks, but the righty was able to calm himself and retired the next two to escape the threat.
“I’m not going to lie when that happened it came into my mind again,” Peralta admitted. “I was just focused and telling myself I have to get the job done and I was able to do it — still getting better and I know there’s a lot more in there.”
Peralta finished with three runs (one earned) on four hits, three walks, and six strikeouts as he completed six innings for just the second time this year.
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The effort ended up being wasted, though, as Luke Weaver gave up a go-ahead two-run homer to CJ Abrams in the top of the eighth to result in another ugly Mets loss.
“I think it’s frustrating because we all want to win,” Peralta said. “We’ve been putting the work in every day to win but this game is really hard and things are not going our way right now.”
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