Meeting The Moment

Kodai Senga seems like he’s going to be the focal point of any game that he pitches. Considering the fact that he chose to pitch in the most intense media market in the world, I’m sure he’s fine with that.

Senga threw six innings in his second start of the season, striking out six, and gave up three hits and three walks (two in the final inning when he was out of gas) in a 5-2 Mets victory against the Marlins. Remember that these are the same Marlins that he faced in the opening week of the season. You could tell that the ghost fork had an effect on the Marlins, as they definitely tried to adjust back and forth to him. Consider that in the first game against the Marlins, just four out of 21 hitters swung at the first pitch against Senga. Today, three of the first five hitters tried to ambush him. So it was obvious that the Marlins tried to keep that ghost fork from being a factor.

Maybe it was less of a factor, but it was still a factor because not only did he strike out four of his six on the ghost fork, but that it was so obviously in the Marlins heads that they were trying everything to mitigate that pitch. It’s also obvious that Senga is going to adjust back, even before the first adjustment. Once he gets comfortable with the rest of the league and with the culture of Major League Baseball, he is going to be a problem for the rest of the league.

The other neat thing about Senga is that being stateside hadn’t turned him into a deer in the headlights. He’s had two chances to unravel and didn’t do it. The first was after the first four hitters of his MLB career, who all reached. Senga only gave up one run in that instance. The second was in the sixth inning today, after he gave up a leadoff home run to Jazz Chisholm. He followed that up with a ground out a ground out to Garrett Cooper, a walk to Luis Arraez, a wild pitch, a sac fly sending Arraez to third, and a walk to Jean Segura.

Now remember, I’m old enough to remember seeing Sid Fernandez cruise through five innings and then unravel at the first sign of adversity in the 6th. But after a visit from Jeremy Hefner, Senga threw one pitch to get Avisail Garcia to ground out to end the inning and end his outing. Now, it was Avisail Garcia, who is hitting .111 … and it’s the Marlins. And his next start is against Oakland. But hey, so far so good on what I’ve seen from Senga. so far. Major league hitters are major league hitters. Getting them out is better than not getting them out. The Mets could sure use more of that, as starting pitching will be the fulcrum that makes or breaks this team.

"It's not very common that a player is associated with such a symbolic mark, so I'm very grateful for that."

Kodai Senga enjoyed the "ghost fork" animation on the scoreboard at Citi Field: pic.twitter.com/ZrEG2hvUD3

— SNY (@SNYtv) April 8, 2023

With the Mets up 3-1 after the 6th thanks to Senga’s outing and a two run HR to Pete Alonso, two encouraging things happened (along with one discouraging thing.) First was Eduardo Escobar’s HR in the bottom of the sixth (and full disclosure: for the first time, I almost typed “Alex Escobar”.) Escobar’s two outs were a hard grounder to short and a fly out to the wall in left. Dude was pissed off. And why wouldn’t he be after his slow start has everybody lighting their pitchforks demanding that Brett Baty plays every day while Escobar gets sent to parts unknown for the rest of his life. That’s what made his reaction to his home run so visceral.

FOGO POWER TO THE OPPOSITE FIELD!

EDUARDO ESCOBAR GOES YARD! pic.twitter.com/c0Q2Er6iHs

— SNY (@SNYtv) April 8, 2023

The second encouraging thing was John Curtiss. Look, we expected the bullpen to be an issue this season. Today threatened to be the first day that the bullpen would outright cost them a victory as Drew Smith gave up a walk and a single, followed by Brooks Raley giving up a walk and a single. But with one big out to get with the bases loaded and two outs … and Jorge Soler up, Curtiss came in and got him to pop up on the second pitch of the at-bat to end the threat, which turned out to be the last threat of the game as Curtiss would set the Marlins down 1-2-3 in the 8th, and David Robertson would set them down 1-2-3 in the 9th to end it.

We’re going to find out a lot about Kodai Senga and the bullpen in the coming weeks with the Dodgers, Giants and Braves on the schedule to finish out the month. But today, Senga and Curtiss were exactly who we hoped they would be when they were signed. Of course, we hope they keep it up. But before that, we have to hope that the Mets keep this modest two game winning streak going with Carlos Carrasco starting, and the Marlins bullpen gassed after three of their pitchers made two appearances in a row. The movable force against the resistable object? Something has to … not give?

Today’s Hate List

1. Wes Helms
2. Hanley Ramirez
3. Dan Uggla
4. Luis Arraez
5. Brooks Koepka