Players of the Week: David Peterson, Dominic Smith Bounce Back

This past week was a tale of two series for the New York Mets.

After taking two out of three from the San Diego Padres, the Mets continued their red-hot play to begin the week. The squad kept the good times rolling, taking three out of four from the first-place Chicago Cubs at home.

In the final game against Chicago, the Mets’ bats were nowhere to be found against right-hander Kyle Hendricks. They continued those woes throughout the weekend, as they were stymied by the Nationals pitching staff and a red-hot Kyle Schwarber.

After dropping three out of four in the set, the Mets fell to an even 4-4 on the week. While the weekend series was a bit disappointing, they still sit atop the National League heading into a huge homestand against the Atlanta Braves and Philadelphia Phillies, which started with a doubleheader split with Atlanta on Monday.

One of the standouts, who helped carry the Mets to two of their four wins over the past week, was David Peterson. After some early season struggles, the young left-hander finally showed out on the mound over his two outings.

The Birthday boy, Dominic Smith, also enjoyed himself a little bit of a bounce back week at the plate in the power department. Smith carried that success over into Monday’s games, picking up three hits, including a clutch three run double.

Pitcher of the Week: David Peterson 

Over his past two starts, the Mets finally saw the David Peterson they’ve been expecting to see all year long.

Peterson put together his best start of his sophomore campaign to open the week last Monday against the Cubs. In the Mets’ 5-2 win, the left-hander allowed just one hit, walked two, and struck out three over six shutout innings.

He built off that performance in the Mets’ lone win of the weekend in Washington. Peterson finished one out shy of picking up his third win, but allowed just one run on two hits while walking three and striking out six.

Peterson also reached base twice on the afternoon. He was hit by a pitch in his first plate appearance, and then lined a double to center leading off the top of the fifth against Joe Ross for his first big league hit.

Peterson came around to score the first run of his career two batters later on Francisco Lindor’s second home run of the afternoon.

With his back-to-back successful starts, Peterson lowered his ERA to 5.31, and now has a 1.37 WHIP and 62 strikeouts through 13 outings. Peterson will take the mound next either in Wednesday night’s series finale against the Braves, or in one of the two games of Friday’s doubleheader with the Phillies.

Peterson’s Stats for the Week: 2 GS, 10.2 IP, 1-0, 3 H, 1 ER, 5 BB, 9 K — 1-for-1, 1 2B, HBP

Hitter of the Week: Dominic Smith

Like most of the Mets offense, Dom Smith was relatively quiet at the plate this weekend. The Nationals pitching shut the Mets down for the most part, aside from a monster day from Francisco Lindor.

However during the Cubs series, Smith was one of the hotter Mets hitters. He opened the week with a juicy matchup against right-hander Jake Arrieta, whom he has tremendous career numbers against.

Smith continued his success against Arrieta, reaching base three times with a hit by pitch, single, and his fifth home run of the season. He poked an opposite-field shift beating double, and scored a run in the Mets’ 3-2 win on Tuesday.

Smith then homered again on Wednesday night off Robert Stock, and drove in another run as he grounded into a double play with the bases loaded. Overall on the week, Smith hit just .278 but posted a 1.102 OPS, launched a pair of homers, and drove in three runs.

Smith is going to need to continue to turn things around with both Michael Conforto and Brandon Nimmo quickly working their way back to the club.

As mentioned above, he opened this week with three hits, including a clutch bases clearing double in Monday’s doubleheader. Hopefully this is a sign of things to come for the slugging lefty who has posted a .695 OPS, 96 OPS+ and has just 15 extra base-hits through 61 games after a breakout 2020 season.

Smith’s Stats for the Week: 5-for-18 (.278), 2 HR, 1 2B, 4 BB, 4 R, 3 RBI, 1.102 OPS