Kodai Senga, Mets' pitching staff back to being 'stabilizing force'
In the final three games against the San Francisco Giants, the Mets allowed five total runs en route to three wins to culminate a 4-3 road trip. Even in their losses, New York allowed three runs or fewer in two of them and for the most part has gotten superior starting pitching two times through the rotation. On Sunday, it was Kodai Senga 's turn to deliver a quality outing and the right-hander handed in five scoreless innings before getting tagged for two runs in the sixth where only one ball was hit particularly hard.
Senga finished his outing by going 5. 2 innings and allowing two earned runs on five hits, two walks and striking out seven on 88 pitches (55 strikes). Early on, he even struck out five in a row and looked great for a second straight start, this one on four days rest.
"It wasn’t perfect today, but good enough to make the game winnable," Senga said after the game through an interpreter. It's the same kind of mentality that Senga used to have with himself when he was going good, often being hyper critical of things that he could improve on and fix for the next one. Still, manager Carlos Mendoza was much more effusive of the right-hander's performance, saying "he pretty much dominated that lineup… Overall I think he was outstanding.
" Senga is the latest of Mets starters to pitch well, following Clay Holmes ' seven scoreless innings on Saturday and Nolan McLean 's five hitless innings on Friday. As a unit, New York's starting rotation has a 3. 13 ERA, eighth in MLB and third in the NL.
What's also encouraging? The Mets rank third in total innings pitched by their starters at 54. 2 -- a year after their staff was routinely unable to go deep into games.