Mets starting pitchers are delivering a game-changing quality we begged for in April
Three of the Mets starting pitchers are giving them the kind of length we begged for early on in 2024.
Another 7 innings from Luis Severino on Monday continued a trend for what appears to be the three trustworthy New York Mets starting pitchers this season. Severino, Sean Manaea, and David Peterson have all been on a pretty awesome run of late with the latter two being the most stupendous of all.
As John Harper of SNY acknowledged, this is now 10 of 15 appearances where these three have gone 7 or more innings. Another two reached the seventh.
Length from the Mets starting pitchers has been a game-changer
In his last 4 appearances, Manaea has been as predictable as it can get. He was one out shy of going the full 7 against the Arizona Diamondbacks but with 11 strikeouts the pitch count was getting into dangerous territory. It was his fourth straight outing of allowing 3 earned runs. This includes the shortened 3 inning, 3 run effort in the 4-0 loss to the Seattle Mariners that factors into Harper’s calculation.
Severino followed up Manaea’s 7 shutout innings on Sunday by allowing only one on the board on Monday. He has been a little less reliable at eating innings although he does have the one shutout near the beginning of this stretch of 15 starts from the “big three.” Severino went only 5 against the Mariners and Padres and exited after 4.2 in his start versus the Arizona Diamondbacks. Less consistent than his teammates, he’s going to be the X-factor in the rotation unless one of the others outside of this close inner circle performs better.
As for Peterson, he is now on a stretch of three straight outings of 7 or more innings. He’s more reliable than Old Faithful these days. The Mets usually win when he’s on the mound. Disallowing his starts from becoming a bullpen vs. bullpen fight, we can credit Peterson’s bravery of pitching to contact and cutting down on the walks for why he has been able to go deeper into games. Groundballs and some clutch double plays on them have been a specialty of his in 2024.
A three-man deep rotation is the bare minimum fans can ask for. The Mets appear to have this at the moment. Not only is it making them look better, it’s saving the bullpen from tiring themselves out as they appeared to do early on in the season.