NEW YORK (AP) — David Peterson had just walked back to the dugout after eight innings and 97 pitches when New York Mets manager Carlos Mendoza approached him.
“Kind of pulled me aside and said let’s have a talk and wanted to hear what I had to say,” Peterson would later recall.
He strolled into the tunnel toward the clubhouse for a quick talk with Mendoza and pitching coach Jeremy Hefner.
“I told them let me finish this thing," the 29-year-old left-hander said.
Peterson returned to the mound and polished off a six-hitter for the first nine-inning complete game of his professional career, a 5-0 victory over the Washington Nationals on Wednesday night that stretched New York's winning streak to five.
“He came in the dugout and he didn’t want to give me a look," Mendoza said. “That for me is a sign that he wants to go back out.”
Their tunnel conversation was brisk. Ryne Stanek was warming up in the bullpen, just in case.
“I said, `Man, this is a tough one,'" Mendoza remembered. “You've only got a few pitches here.' It was like: `Let me finish it.' I said: `All right, it’s yours.'"
Mendoza emphasized the short leash to catcher Luis Torrens.
“He says, `Hey, he’s got about eight or nine pitches,'" Torrens related through a translator, “so I went out there with the plan to be able to get a quick ninth.”
Fans in the Citi Field crowd of 40,681 roared when Peterson rushed back to the mound for the ninth. He fell behind Amed Rosario 2-0 before retiring him on a lineout, struck out slugger James Wood on three pitches and retired Andrés Chaparro on a groundout with his 106th pitch, ending a game that took just 2 hours, 16 minutes.
Peterson pumped a fist, flashed the widest of smiles and hugged Torrens and then Pete Alonso. The first baseman handed Peterson the ball, which the pitcher promptly tucked into a rear pocket in his pants. A dozen Mets formed a circle, arms over shoulders, and each raised a knee quickly in their goofy group celebration.
“It’s been fun to see him grow up in front of my eyes,” said outfielder Brandon Nimmo, who homered twice. “I was here when he first came up and everybody’s kind of trying to feel their way around and kind of make sure they belong in the big leagues. And then now to see him the way that he is and him take the field with such confidence and knowing that if he executes his plan, he’s really hard to hit.”
Peterson struck out six and walked none, throwing 75 of 106 pitches for strikes and opening with a strike to 21 of 32 batters. He mixed 30 fastballs, 29 sinkers, 27 sliders, 11 changeups and nine curveballs, getting 13 swings and misses.
“He kept us off balance,” Nationals manager Dave Martinez said.
Peterson’s only prior professional complete game was a four-hitter in a rain-shortened, five-inning loss to Atlanta on April 28, 2023. His previous nine-inning complete game came in college, a four-hit shutout for Oregon against Arizona State on April 28, 2017.
Selected by the Mets with the 20th overall pick in that year's amateur draft, Peterson signed for a $2,994,500 bonus. He won his debut three years later at Fenway Park early in the pandemic-shortened season and was 18-21 with a 4.51 ERA in his first four seasons, getting optioned back to Triple-A Syracuse five times in 2022 and twice more in 2023.
He had surgery on Nov. 6, 2023, to repair a torn labrum in his left hip, delaying his 2024 debut until May 29. He is 15-5 with a 2.74 ERA since.
Last October, he was moved to the bullpen and got the final three outs of the Division Series clincher at Milwaukee.
“The compete, how much he wants it, his ability to come through in big moments,” Mendoza explained, “I can sit here and say a lot of different things about him, but he’s just a guy that the situation is never too big for.”
In an age of analytics that has made bullpen use paramount, Peterson pitched the seventh shutout and 14th complete game in the major leagues this season. The Mets hadn't thrown a complete game since Luis Severino's shutout against Miami last Aug. 17 and they hadn't gotten a shutout from a left-hander since Steven Matz vs. Pittsburgh on July 27, 2019.
“When you have to work for something, and when it doesn’t come easy, it means all that much more,” Nimmo said. “He was a first-round pick, and you have a lot of expectations that come with you with that. But he stayed the process, and he’s worked hard and taken advantage of that talent.”
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