6-27-2025 – By Michael Castrignano – @412DoublePlay on X
Back home in Pittsburgh, the Pirates welcome the NL East-leading Mets and lefty David Peterson, who enters with a strong 2.98 ERA through his first 90.2 innings pitched over his first 15 starts of the season.
The Bucs last faced Peterson on May 12, where he stifled the Pirates through 6 innings of 5-hit, 2-run ball with 3 walks and 7 strikeouts but he is coming off his worst outing of the season as he allowed 5 runs through just 4 innings against the Phillies.
We covered Peterson’s overall profile previously so this time, we are going to focus on his struggles outside of Citi Field.
When facing Peterson on their home turf, opposing hitters have attacked Peterson to the tune of a .715 OPS compared to .595 OPS when Peterson pitches first.
Additionally, Peterson’s home FIP (2.58) is significantly lower than his away mark (4.29) with nearly 30 points difference in BABIP (.303 at home and .274 away) – both of which would suggest that, even with the poor splits, it probably should be even worse.
He is still struggling after the first time through the order, seeing his opponent batting average jump from .180 first time through to .266 in the second trek and .291 the third time batters see him.
In the aforementioned Phillies game, Peterson used a fastball and slider-heavy combo which generated a combined 4 whiffs on 22 swings between the sinker, 4-seam and slider. He hung a good amount of those pitches and good hitters will execute against mistakes like these.
The Pirates are not great at capitalizing against mistakes – especially when facing lefties, against whom they are slashing .215/.278/.328 on the season as a team. Peterson is going to hammer the strike zone with low-90s heat while dropping the mid-80s slider down to get whiffs with his main putaway pitch.
Look to target heat as opposing righties are batting .271 against the 2-seam and .288 when facing the 4-seam fastball. If he hangs pitches like he did in his last start, the team has at least a chance.
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