Mets Send Peralta To Mound In His Milwaukee Homecoming

The New York Mets will send starter Freddy Peralta to the hill tonight against his former team, the Milwaukee Brewers, but the circumstances behind Peralta’s return will be very different from the way anyone thought this was going to go down before or early in the season. 

The original plan had Peralta leading a contending team into Milwaukee after the Mets made the blockbuster trade to get him. The current reality has the Mets completely out contention as they showcase Peralta as their primary trade chip with the trade deadline approaching. 

This may or may not go well, depending on how the Mets handle Peralta tonight. He’s proven to be “five inning Freddy” so far, with an ERA thats’ been among the worst in baseball among eligible starters, so the Mets have been shortening his outings to make him a more appealing trade target. 

The evidence is in his last two starts, one against the Atlanta Braves, the other the weekend before the All-Star break against the Boston Red Sox. Peralta didn’t go five in either start, and the Mets were limit the damage to three runs, one earned, against the Braves, then two runs against the Red Sox. 

Peralta’s opponent in this one will be fireballer Jacob Misiorowski, who’s been borderline breaking radar guns all season. Misiorowski has 21 strikeouts in his last two starts, although the St. Louis Cardinals were able to get three earned runs against Misiorowski in the most recent one. 

As for the two teams, that’s a mismatch on steroids, so to speak. The Brewers are 62-37 and 25 games over .500, while the Mets are 16 under at 42-58. The Brewers play hard-nosed winning baseball, while the Mets play…something else. 

The Mets did win their last series against the Philadelphia Phillies in the first leg of their road trip, proving that all things are possible. The Mets are well out of contention, but they’re trying to prove they can play competent baseball as they take trade calls after announcing that they’re “open for business.”

The Brewers, meanwhile, focus on doing business. They’re six games ahead of the Chicago Cubs in the NL Central, and while the Cubs could still offer a challenge, they haven’t been nearly consistent enough for many folks to take them seriously in that regard. 

Overall, this should be a fun matchup that features one marquee pitcher, and another who used to be a marquee pitcher. There’s plenty to see in this one, so it’s seriously worth a watch.