CLEVELAND -- Throughout the past three years, as Kodai Senga struggled to prove both healthy and effective, some curiosity emerged regarding what he might look like as a high-leverage reliever. Initially, the Mets were reluctant to remove Senga from their rotation given his prior success there. More recently, the team didn’t possess the proper bullpen makeup to give him those reps.
Now, with the Trade Deadline having come and gone for a non-contending Mets team, the proper ingredients are in place. For the foreseeable future, Senga will pitch in one-inning stints out of the bullpen, interim manager Andy Green said, giving club decision-makers a chance to evaluate him in that role. He debuted with a perfect ninth inning Tuesday in the Mets’ 6-2 win over the Guardians.
“I do think in his right arm is 100 miles an hour and a nasty forkball,” interim manager Andy Green said, “and that profile plays for a late-inning reliever.”
Even when Senga was starting games, team officials encouraged him to rely more fully on his two elite pitches, his four-seamer and forkball. Though Senga never quite embraced that strategy, he may do so now, knowing he’ll no longer need to navigate through lineups multiple times. To that end, Senga opened Tuesday’s outing with six consecutive fastballs, reaching 98.8 mph on the radar gun before finally turning to another pitch.
For the Mets, this is an experiment. Senga, who has little trade value, remains under team control for one more season at $15 million. At this point, the odds of him contributing to the rotation in a meaningful way are low, given his 8.66 ERA this season and the fact that he’s only pitched 163 1/3 innings since his first full year in New York in 2023, when he threw 166 1/3 innings. But if the Mets can coax any value out of him as a reliever, Senga could still become a useful part of their 2027 team.
“We’ll see how he responds over the next few weeks, and we’ll reserve the right to pivot back to the rotation if we think that’s the right thing for him and for us,” Green said. “Where we’re at right now, just want to see him take the ball in one of the next couple of days for one inning, and attack it like you would expect a leverage reliever to attack it.”
For Senga, the new role is a necessary evil. When Mets officials informed him of their decision on Tuesday afternoon, Senga relented, but reminded them that he signed as a starter and eventually wants to return to the rotation.
“Whatever role is given to me, I’m going to throw in that role -- regardless of what I say,” Senga said through an interpreter. “If I say I want to be a starter, the team could tell me, ‘Just look at your stats.’ And I don’t have anything to say back to them.”
Lock, Stock and two games started
Robert Stock, who grew emotional last weekend after making his first Major League start since 2021, will receive at least one more.
With Freddy Peralta and Clay Holmes gone from the Mets’ rotation mix, and with Senga in the bullpen, the Mets will give Stock at least one additional chance to prove he can be a viable Major League starter. The right-hander will pitch one of the Mets’ first two games in Pittsburgh this weekend, likely on Saturday.
“Not committed to anything beyond that,” Green said. “I think for him, where he’s at in life, a four-day commitment feels pretty good.”
A big-league reliever from 2018-21, Stock spent the next four years bouncing around to Korea, Mexico, the Dominican Republic and even the Atlantic League’s Long Island Ducks before making it back for two brief stints with the Red Sox in 2025. That was enough for the Mets to offer Stock a Minor League contract in the offseason, but he subsequently underwent surgery to address symptoms of arterial thoracic outlet syndrome before Spring Training.
Now, Stock has a chance to remain in the Mets’ rotation, so long as he pitches well enough to warrant it. Eventually, the Mets may choose to take another look at their No. 2 prospect Jonah Tong (No. 75 overall), who has spent almost this entire season in the Minors.
LuBob’s second act
Despite speculation that the Mets may trade him at the Deadline, outfielder Luis Robert Jr. never switched teams. Multiple league sources described a tepid market for Robert, who entered Tuesday having appeared in just 35 games this season with a .610 OPS.
Given that Robert’s contract includes a $20 million team option for next season with a $2 million buyout, he is highly unlikely to return.
In the interim, the Mets intend to use him.
“Luis is going to get an opportunity to play baseball,” Green said. “He’s a very good baseball player. We brought him in here to help us win baseball games. We’d love to see him get going in a really positive way.”
Robert started Tuesday’s series opener against the Guardians in center field and will man that position regularly over the season’s final two months. But the Mets also want to give A.J. Ewing reps in center, so they may soon experiment with Robert at a corner -- somewhere he has never played in his MLB career. Robert has just 14 games of professional experience in left and right field combined, the last of those coming at Double-A in 2019.
The happy ligament club
Among six new players on the active roster Tuesday were Nate Lavender and Dedniel Núñez, who underwent Tommy John surgeries in 2024 and 2025, respectively.
For Lavender, the call-up marked a long-awaited Major League debut for a player who came close in 2023 before tearing his UCL and missing nearly two full seasons. Lavender’s wife and parents traveled to Cleveland this week to watch him realize his dream, which included a punchout of former No. 1 overall pick Travis Bazzana to strand two inherited runners on base in the seventh.
“Unbelievable. Unbelievable,” Lavender said of the experience. “It’s been a long journey.”
For Núñez, the comeback from surgery was quicker. A key part of the Mets’ bullpen in 2024, Núñez injured himself early last season but made it back to the Majors in less than 13 months.
“He did a ton of work over the last month in the Minor Leagues to make sure his arm was in a safe, healthy space,” Green said. “At the same time, it’s wise to be aware of the fact that he just came back from injury. We will pay attention to that and manage his workload accordingly.”