Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports

David Peterson wasn’t able to make it through the first inning on Wednesday only two days after Chris Bassitt had an unusually short start meaning the Mets needed Carlos Carrasco to come up big on Thursday night and he did just that.

Carrasco, coming off six innings of one-run ball in his last start, began his Thursday night start against the Pirates with three strikeouts in a scoreless first inning. The second inning was the first and only time Carrasco would run into problems in his outing. A Michael Chavis RBI double gave the Pirates their only run of the game and cut the Mets’ lead to 2-1. Carrasco would strike out the next two batters to end the threat.

Carrasco would allow only two more hits in the rest of his six-inning outing. His final line was impressive:

6 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 2 BB, 11 K, 104 pitches/64 strikes

The pitch of the night for the former Roberto Clemente award winner on Roberto Clemente day was his changeup. Of the 11 strikeouts, eight of them came on the changeup and all of those were swinging. He had a 58% whiff rate on the 24 swings he got on the changeup. Only three balls were put in play against his change on Thursday and the average exit velocity was 79.2 mph.

Coming into Thursday night, Carrasco was throwing his changeup around 24% of the time, but he used it a whopping 41% against the Pirates lineup. The changeup has been arguably his best pitch all year, holding opponents to a .204 average and only a .299 slugging percentage.

It was a season-high in strikeouts for Carrasco with 11 and the 28th double-digit strikeout game of his career. It was also the 11th straight start in which Carrasco didn’t allow more than three earned runs, the longest such stretch of his 13-season career.

In that span of 11 starts of no more than three earned runs a start, Carrasco has a 2.12 ERA over 59 1/3 innings. For the season, Carrasco is 15-6 with a 3.70 ERA in 26 starts. Carrasco’s huge turnaround from a miserable 2021 season is one of the reasons why the Mets are leading the NL East.