Freddy Peralta came to the Mets coming off the best season of his career, but over his 13 starts entering Tuesday he had not been close to the pitcher who went 17-6 with a 2.70 ERA and placed fifth in Cy Young voting.

But at 4-4 with a 3.63 ERA his numbers had been in line with his performances the two years prior. In 2024, he was 11-9 with a 3.68 ERA and in 2023 he went 12-10 with a 3.86 ERA.

Start No. 14, however, was his worst as a Met. He allowed six earned runs on six hits over six innings, struck out five, walked two and hit two batters in New York’s 7-0 loss to St. Louis in front of 35,175 at Citi Field. His ERA jumped to 4.04. He hasn’t finished a season with an ERA north of 4.00 since 2019.

“Not good right now,” he told reporters who asked how his season was going. “Talking about numbers. At the end of the day, it’s all that matters. I’ve been in this situation before. Good thing is that I’m healthy and I have 18, 19 more games in front of me. I just have to keep competing, that’s it. And at the end of the day … the way that I see it all the time I just come to compete. …  at the end of the day my numbers are going to be there, that’s it.”

Peralta threw two scoreless innings before walking Nolan Gorman (.606 OPS) on four pitches to lead off the third. Four of the next five batters reached safely (double, single, hit batter, strikeout, double) and St. Louis pushed across four runs, as many as Peralta has allowed in a game all season. Alec Burleson added a two-run homer in the fifth.

“I just thought he didn’t have the life on the fastball today, the velo was a tick down,” Carlos Mendoza said after the Mets dropped to 29-37. “Looked like he was just a little off today for some reason. Like the hop on the top of the zone wasn’t there. They were able to get the barrel there at times and they got him.”

Asked to assess Peralta’s season, Mendoza said: “He’s been good for the most part. When you look at his numbers, there have been outings where it’s a grind for five innings, but he gives us a chance to win a baseball game. There’s been a few of them where he’s been pretty good.

“And then there’s a couple of them like tonight. I think there was one in Miami, too – where, yes, he went six today, over there he went seven, but gave up a lot of runs. But for the most part, he continues to give us a chance to win baseball games.”