Mets’ June 15-28 pitching swing: starters struggled, bullpen held up, and David Peterson’s Mets run ended

Over the span of June 15-28, the Mets’ pitching narrative shifted back toward an old concern. According to a Mets Player Meter review from Yahoo Sports, New York’s starting pitchers were repeatedly tagged for big innings, while the bullpen continued to deliver in relief. The result was a rough stretch for the starters, even as games stayed salvageable more often than not after the rotation left the mound.

The most striking point in the review involved David Peterson, the longest-tenured Mets pitcher referenced in the piece. Yahoo Sports characterizes Peterson’s role in this window as ending before another potential rough outing, saying he was moved out “before he could have another clunker performance in the Orange and Blue.” That framing matters because it suggests the Mets were not only dealing with day-to-day performance problems, but also making choices about how they wanted their rotation to look during the middle of the season.

Freddy Peralta was also singled out in the same review for a start described as particularly damaging. Yahoo Sports reports that the outing was so poor it “might have cost him money in his upcoming free agency,” and it also said the performance could have hurt his trade value. The point for Mets fans is less about contract hypotheticals and more about what an ugly start can do to a pitcher’s overall market perception in a division where teams monitor both present needs and summer acquisition targets.

The bullpen, by contrast, is presented as the stabilizing unit across the same two-week window. Yahoo Sports’ Mets Player Meter specifically calls out that the bullpen “continued to come through,” even while the rotation was “shelled repeatedly.” That kind of split, where relief saves the results that starters put in danger, is often the difference between a rotation that looks salvageable and one that becomes an ongoing drain on every outing.

Nolan McLean received a softer version of the same attention. Yahoo Sports describes him as “looked awesome and then not so awesome,” implying his performance has swung rather than followed a steady line. For a bullpen arm, consistency is the lever the Mets can control most directly, and a pitcher who shows both high-end moments and regression within a short window becomes a key evaluation case as the season progresses.

If the Mets’ summer is to remain competitive, this June 15-28 snapshot underscores what will likely receive priority next: improving how quickly starters can get through the middle innings, limiting the damage when they are in trouble early, and keeping the bullpen’s effectiveness from becoming a one-week phenomenon.

Going forward, the practical test will be whether New York can turn this kind of relief-and-damage-control pattern into something closer to rotation-to-bullpen continuity. The Mets’ next few turns and bullpen usage decisions should reveal whether June’s starter problems were an anomaly that corrected itself after Peterson’s exit, or a sign of deeper roster needs that will have to be addressed again before the trade deadline becomes fully real for their staff.