Senga shows flashes of 2023 rookie season in start vs. Marlins

NEW YORK -- For four innings Friday night at Citi Field, Kodai Senga looked like the version of himself the Mets have always known existed.

Pressed into emergency starting duty because the Mets scratched Freddy Peralta amidst intensifying trade negotiations, Senga dialed his fastball to 98 mph. He relied heavily on his four-seamer and splitter, his two best pitches. He struck out four of the first seven batters he faced. None of the other three reached base against him.

Eventually, Senga’s success faded; he walked the first two batters of the fifth inning, allowed an RBI double to Jakob Marsee and watched two inherited runs score after he left the game. But Senga’s final line -- four-plus innings, three earned runs in a 5-2 loss to the Marlins -- did not tell an accurate story of his night.

The reality is that, pitching for the first time in 13 days, Senga was passable -- at times even dynamic. He was good enough to make one wonder where this version of him has been all along.

“I think he was phenomenal today,” interim manager Andy Green said. “For a guy who hasn’t been out there for 13 or 14 days, you couldn’t have asked for anything more.”

What comes next remains to be seen. Assuming the Mets deal both Peralta and Clay Holmes before Monday’s 6 p.m. ET Trade Deadline, they will be left with two rotation vacancies. One figures to go to Jonah Tong, the organization’s top-ranked prospect who has begun to salvage his disappointing season with a 1.84 ERA over his last three starts at Triple-A Syracuse. The other makes all the sense in the world for Senga.

Outside of Tong, the only true rotation prospect at Syracuse is Jonathan Santucci, the Mets’ second-round Draft pick in 2024 and No. 2 prospect who only just reached Triple-A. The Mets do not possess a wealth of starting pitching depth, which is a significant reason why they’ve found themselves selling at the Deadline.

Of course, the Mets have been here before. After signing Senga to a five-year, $75 million contract and watching him finish seventh in National League Cy Young Award voting as a rookie, the Mets have tried to bottle those achievements with little success. In 2024, Senga made just one regular-season start due to shoulder and calf injuries, before imploding in the playoffs. Last year, he pitched above his peripherals before injuring himself again, then proved so ineffective upon his return that he consented to a season-ending stint in the Minors.

This year, things seemed like they might go differently when Senga showed up to Spring Training looking as sharp as at any point since 2023. But after a couple solid outings to open the season, Senga produced a 17.28 ERA over three consecutive April starts, spent the next seven weeks on the injured list, then pitched poorly enough that the Mets simply stopped using him.

When interim manager Andy Green tabbed Senga to replace Peralta on Friday, it marked the right-hander’s first game action in nearly two weeks.

“Not moving at game speed for close to two weeks, to be honest there was some fear -- like, ‘I hope it’s going to go OK,’” Senga said through an interpreter. “But despite that, I was able to go out there, not be too tense or anything, and go out there and pitch.”

Immediately after Friday’s game, Green was unwilling to commit to another start for Senga, saying only that the right-hander should pitch “meaningful innings” for the Mets over the final two months of the season. The meaning of that should become clearer after the Trade Deadline passes.

No matter the context, it’s another chance for Senga, who’s under team control for one more season after this one.

“All that I’m able to do and can do is go out and perform,” Senga said. “Hopefully today becomes kind of a trigger to performing well in the future. But that’s all I can do, so that’s what I’m focused on.”