JUPITER, Fla. (AP) — The New York Mets plan to put newly acquired ace Freddy Peralta on the mound against Pittsburgh on opening day.
New York traded two prospects to Milwaukee last month for the two-time All-Star.
“When we acquired him, it was pretty clear that he was going to be pitching at the front of our rotation,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said Friday before Peralta had three strikeouts in three innings against St. Louis in a spring training game. “He earned it. I'm excited. We're all excited.”
New York opens March 26 at home.
The 29-year-old right-hander gives the new-look Mets a frontline starter after their rotation struggled in the second half of a disappointing 2025 season. They also signed free agent infielder Bo Bichette and acquired center fielder Luis Robert Jr. in a trade with the Chicago White Sox.
Peralta was 17-6 with a 2.70 ERA in 33 starts last season, when he led the National League in wins and finished fifth in Cy Young Award voting. He struck out 204 in 176 2/3 innings and earned his second All-Star selection.
Peralta is set to make $8 million this season and can become a free agent following the World Series. He is 70-42 with a 3.59 ERA and 1,153 strikeouts in 931 innings over eight major league seasons, all with Milwaukee.
AP MLB: https://apnews.com/mlb
New York Mets manager Carlos Mendoza jogs back from the mound after making a pitching change during the fourth inning of a spring training baseball game Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2026, in Port St. Lucie, Fla. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)
STOCKHOLM (AP) — A Russian drone carried out an unauthorized flight off southern Sweden earlier this week while a French aircraft carrier was docked in the port of Malmö, the Swedish military said Friday, in what the defense minister said was a violation of his country's airspace.
The armed forces said in a statement that a Swedish naval vessel detected a drone taking off from a Russian signals intelligence ship in the Öresund strait, which separates Sweden from Denmark.
The military said that systems on board the Swedish ship, the HMS Rapp, took countermeasures to disrupt the drone. It said the Russian ship, the Zhigulevsk, had entered Swedish territorial waters and the Rapp approached it to monitor its transit through the strait.
The French nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle is in the southern Swedish city of Malmö this week as part of regular NATO exercise activities. Malmö is located on the Öresund, opposite Denmark’s capital, Copenhagen.
French military spokesperson Guillaume Vernet told The Associated Press that the drone was detected on Wednesday and handled by Swedish forces integrated into a security system around the carrier. He said Friday that the drone was more than 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the Charles de Gaulle.
“This system showed it is robust, and this event had no impact on the activity of the aircraft carrier battle group,” Vernet said.
The Swedish military said it followed the Russian ship out of Swedish waters and it is now in the Baltic Sea.
It said that, after analyzing technical data, it determined that the drone carried out an unauthorized flight. In addition to that, it said, the Zhigulevsk didn't act in accordance with rules that apply to vessels passing through the strait in Swedish waters.
"The incident constitutes a breach of Sweden’s access regulations and a violation of Swedish airspace," Swedish Defense Minister Pål Jonson wrote in a social media post. “It is, of course, serious and irresponsible.”
Jonson had said on Thursday evening that the drone appeared to be Russian. Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said during a visit to the French ship earlier Friday that “it is serious and maybe not surprising,” as Russia dislikes Western exercises and the West dislikes Moscow's actions.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot, who visited the Charles de Gaulle along with Kristersson, emphasized that the security of the aircraft carrier wasn't threatened.
"If indeed ... there is a potential Russian origin for this incident, it would be a ridiculous provocation," he said. He said that he had no information of his own on the source of the drone.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said he didn’t know about the incident. Asked by reporters about Swedish officials linking the drone to the Russian ship, Peskov said that “it’s quite absurd” to claim that the drone was Russian just because a Russian ship was nearby.
Western officials say Russia is masterminding a campaign of sabotage and disruption across Europe. An Associated Press database has documented well over 100 incidents. Not all of them are public and it can sometimes take officials months to establish a link to Moscow.
While officials say the campaign — waged since Russia launched an all-out war against Ukraine in 2022 — aims to deprive Kyiv of support, they believe Moscow is also trying to identify Europe’s weak spots and divert law enforcement resources.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, right, meet before the bilateral meeting on the French aircraft carrier Charles De Gaulle (R91) berthed at the North Port in Malmo, Sweden, Friday, Feb. 27, 2026. (Johan Nilsson/TT News Agency via AP)
FILE - French aircraft carrier The Charles de Gaulle docks at Subic Bay port, a former U.S. Naval base northwest of Manila, Philippines, Sunday, Feb. 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Joeal Calupitan, File)
