It is very rare that a pitcher will struggle with control as mightily as Kodai Senga did early in yesterday’s 7-1 Mets victory over the Diamondbacks and not only win the game, but not give up an earned run in the process.
In the bottom of the first, Senga walked two batters, but escaped without trouble when the first of those, Corbin Carroll, was throw out trying to steal second, and he induced a weak pop up and a ground out. Next inning, Senga started out by walking Eugion Suárez, who attempted to sore on an Alek Thomas double that required three perfect components to be stopped: Tyrone Taylor’s throw to the relay man, Francisco Lindor’s strike to Luis Torrens, and the perfect tag by Torrens. Luckily for Senga, all three fell into place and, after a wild pitch and a strikeout, the Mets escaped the inning unscathed.
When the Diamondbacks came up to bat in the bottom of the third, the first two batters reached on walks. A visit from pitching coach Jeremy Hefner calmed Senga down, and he was nearly perfect from then on out. It took just three pitches to get three outs to escape the third, ten more to get through the fourth, and nine to get through the fifth. In the sixth, Carroll led off with a single, but Senga dug in and got three consecutive outs, stranding Carroll at first.
Senga threw 89 pitches, with just 48 for strikes. As you can see from his pitch breakdown below, he threw mostly four-seam fastballs, cutters, and ghost forks, with two of his four strikeouts coming on the fork, and one apiece on the fastball and the slider.
Once Senga settled in, he looked quite good, but without the excellent defense that turned a double play, prevented a successful bunt, and made a perfect play to nail a runner at the plate, it would’ve been quite a different outing for Senga.
With that start, Senga lowered his ERA to 1.16 on the season thus far. He hasn’t allowed more than two earned runs in any start, and has surrendered just one home run thus far.
As MLB.com’s Michael Reynolds pointed out, the last Met to walk five of his first ten batters faced in a game was Zack Wheeler back in 2013.
