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

This past week started out so bright for the New York Mets. They were riding so high coming off a weekend series sweep of the Arizona Diamondbacks. Things are starting to look up for this group, as the offense started to turn it around.

They continued that momentum, sweeping the Baltimore Orioles in a two-game set, to stretch the winning streak to seven games. All was well in Mets world, though reality came crashing down real quick.

This weekend was an absolute nightmare for the Mets, as they were swept by the Tampa Bay Rays, losing both Michael Conforto and Jeff McNeil to injuries in the process. Overall, they finished 2-3 on the week.

With both McNeil and Conforto down as well now, the Mets are really going to need their big bats to step things up. Thankfully, Dominic Smith finally showed some signs of life at the plate this week, making him the Hitter of the Week.

They are also going to need our Pitcher of the Week, David Peterson, to continue putting together strong efforts. The lefty continues to show his upside, when he stays in control, and puts it all together out there.

Pitcher of the Week: David Peterson

The 2021 season has been a bit of a roller coaster for David Peterson, however, this past weekend he put together one of the strongest efforts of his young big league career.

Peterson allowed two runs on four hits while walking two and striking out nine over 7.1 innings of work. The lefty pitched better than his line shows, and reached the eighth inning for the first time in his career before ultimately running out of gas.

Mike Zunino led off the inning with a massive homer, then the Rays scratched across another that was charged to Peterson after he was pulled. The Mets bullpen went on to blow the lead, and Peterson was handed a no decision despite the strong effort.

These are the types of outing the Mets are going to need to see from the 25-year old moving forward. It was an excellent bounce back after his last outing in which is just lasted 1.2 innings against the Diamondbacks.

On the season he now has a 4.86 ERA, 1.26 WHIP, and 41 punch outs over seven outings. We’ll see if ‘Petey’ can build off of this in his next outing, which will likely take place on Wednesday night against the Atlanta Braves.

Peterson’s Stats for the Week: 1 GS, 7.1 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 9 K

Hitter of the Week: Dominic Smith

After an absolutely miserable start to the season, the Mets have finally began to see some signs of life out of Dom Smith at the plate.

Smith received the day off to begin the week on Tuesday night, but came off the bench late in the game, and put together a nice at-bat before ultimately lining a clutch game-tying RBI double off left-hander Cesar Valdez.

He carried that success over into Wednesday afternoon, and had his way with former Met Matt Harvey. In a breakout day for the Mets offense, Smith went 3-for-4 with a pair of run scoring hits and also scored a run.

Smith had a two hit day on Saturday afternoon in Tampa Bay, but that was during what was a pretty dreadful weekend for the Mets as a whole. He started off this week reaching base three times in Monday night’s win over the Atlanta Braves.

Of late, Smith has turned himself into an on-base machine of sorts. Over his past 15 games, he’s drawn seven walks and has a .404 OBP.  It’s certainly encouraging to see Smith getting on-base a bit more during the month of May, but the Mets could use a bit more power out of the slugging left-hander.

As I mentioned above, with McNeil and Conforto reaching the IL along with Brandon Nimmo, J.D. Davis, and Luis Guillorme, the Mets are really going to need the big bats of Smith, Francisco Lindor, and Pete Alonso to pick things up and hold down the fort until they get healthy.

Smith’s Stats of the Week: 7-for-21 (.333 BA), .391 OBP, .772 OPS, 4 RBI