NEW YORK -- Among the many things the Mets are evaluating as they meander down the stretch of the 2023 season is their Major League rotation depth. It’s an area in which the team felt comfortable heading into the year, until injuries and poor performances changed the equation.

Now, the Mets are taking long looks at the healthy depth options who remain, from regular rotation members David Peterson and Tylor Megill to less-tested options José Butto and Joey Lucchesi. Recent returns on the latter front have been promising. A night after Butto delivered a second consecutive strong outing, Lucchesi returned to the rotation with seven-plus quality innings in a 7-1 win over the D-backs on Wednesday night.

“Joey Fuego looked good today,” said Mets designated hitter Mark Vientos, who homered to pace an 11-hit attack. “He’s a dog.”

Tapped to start at Citi Field as part of the Mets’ effort to avoid overtaxing their regular starters, Lucchesi did what he has done nearly every time the team has called on him this summer.

Strong from the start, he pitched to contact throughout the evening, keeping the D-backs off-balance with a four-pitch mix that went well beyond his signature “churve.” The left-hander relied on the age-old salve of mixing pitches and changing speeds to frustrate a lineup full of right-handed hitters.

“When you get somebody [who’s] going to pick at the zone, sink and change and maybe just drop the breaking ball in there, you’ve got to be really stubborn,” Arizona manager Torey Lovullo said. “Give him credit, he just kept pounding the zone with the same pitches. We didn’t make an adjustment.”

Lucchesi rather enjoys this Major League strike zone, compared to the Automated Ball-Strike system to which he struggled to adapt at Triple-A. Citing ABS as a primary reason for his issues in the Minors, Lucchesi pitched to a 4.74 ERA in 15 outings at Syracuse. In the Majors, that number is 2.83.

It’s a discrepancy that makes things difficult for Mets officials as they try to evaluate Lucchesi. On the one hand, the team cannot just look past the left-hander’s full body of work in his first season back from Tommy John surgery. On the other, recency bias does matter heading into the offseason.

Lucchesi will be arbitration-eligible again this winter after making $1.15 million in each of the past two seasons. Relatively speaking, it wouldn’t be all that expensive for the Mets to keep him around as a rotation depth piece -- provided general manager Billy Eppler and incoming president of baseball operations David Stearns feel he offers enough value in that role.

“I didn’t play all last year, so I had to show them I still had that fight in me,” Lucchesi said. “I believe I have a lot of life left in my body and a lot of fight. So hopefully they recognize that and see it, and it works out for me. I obviously want to be up here and pitch with these guys. I can only just pitch to the best of my ability and let them decide.”

If nothing else, Lucchesi is feeling strong late in September, now more than two years removed from Tommy John surgery. He pitched into the eighth inning against the D-backs, doing so for the first time in his career, and allowed just one unearned, inherited run.

It remains to be seen whether Lucchesi will make another start, but the Mets do have reason to give him that chance. Every data point, after all, means another chance to evaluate.

“Every impression and memory you can leave [is important],” manager Buck Showalter said. “Billy and the front office have got a lot of decisions to make that are affected by where guys like him are.”