4 players to blame for the Mets falling behind the Braves in the NL East

4. David Peterson is the main culprit behind the Mets' pitching struggles in 2023.

Peterson's 2023 season has been both bad and puzzling at the same time. It is bad in these terms: Entering Sunday's action, among 131 starting pitchers that have thrown 30 or more innings, Peterson's 8.08 ERA and .404 BABIP ranked highest and second highest, respectively. Peterson has been getting hit hard all year.

Peterson has also not been able to get out of innings unscathed, as opponents have batted .377 against him with one or two outs and .429 with two outs and runners in scoring position. As a result, he hasn't shown any sort of confidence in himself when he is on the hill, and is not going after hitters like he did last year or spring training.

Speaking of spring training, he was terrific this spring in Port St. Lucie, not allowing a run in 12 innings of work before the season started, which makes Peterson's poor regular season so confusing. What is also crazy is that Peterson has struck out nearly 25 percent of his batters and walked just 7.7 percent of them. So it's not like he's walking the world and control is an issue. But the bottom line is situational pitching has not been Peterson's thing this season, and it has cost him dearly.

So Peterson's poor season has him in the minor leagues for the foreseeable future as he seeks to regain trust in his stuff. By the way, he gave up four runs in 4.2 innings for Triple-A Syracuse on Saturday. Not exactly promising, either.