Freddy Peralta avoided walks and had the Pirates swinging and missing, but two homers allowed ultimately turned what could have been a special Mets debut into something ordinary.
Twice, Brandon Lowe homered against him.
That accounted for three of the four runs Peralta surrendered in the Mets’ 11-7 victory in the season opener at Citi Field.
“I don’t see the first one as a mistake, but it’s part of the game,” Peralta said of the curveball that Lowe lofted just beyond Carson Benge’s outstretched glove above the right field fence. “The other one, yeah, it was a mistake.”
Peralta allowed four earned runs on six hits with seven strikeouts over five innings. He didn’t walk a batter in the 80-pitch performance.
The ace right-hander, who arrived in a January trade with the Brewers, appeared loose heading into his start, according to Carlos Mendoza.
“It’s still the same smile when he came from the bullpen, right before he took the field,” Mendoza said. “That’s what impressed me the most. You see his personality and it’s Opening Day, he’s about to take the field and he’s got a smile on his face, so he’s used to it.”
Peralta was thankful the Mets lineup responded, scoring five runs in the first inning against Paul Skenes, who was removed after 37 pitches in the frame. Lowe’s initial homer had sunk the Mets in a 2-0 hole.
“I [told] them before the game today, I said, ‘I need some runs from you guys,’ ” Peralta said. “It wasn’t [Skenes’] day today.”
Mike Tauchman, after undergoing surgery to repair a torn meniscus in his left knee, is facing a return-to-play time of about six weeks.
The veteran outfielder was in position to claim a spot on the Mets’ Opening Day roster before leaving Saturday’s spring training game with discomfort in the knee.
The Mets selected Jared Young to the roster in that reserve outfield spot.
The five runs the Mets scored in the first inning represented the most in franchise history in a season opener.
Their 10 plate appearances in the inning were their most in a frame on Opening Day since the fifth inning in 2018 against the Cardinals.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: nypost.com
