This Week in Mets: Riding a more aggressive attack plan past Dodgers

“For she had come to feel that it was the only thing worth saying — what one felt. Cleverness was silly. One must say simply what one felt.”
—“Mrs. Dalloway,” Virginia Woolf

To Carlos Mendoza, the key word was “attack.”

In a series win over the Dodgers, clinched by Sunday night’s 3-1 win, the New York Mets’ consistent attack of the strike zone distinguished itself from what happened in last year’s National League Championship Series.

In six games against the Dodgers last fall, the Mets walked 42 Los Angeles hitters. In three games this weekend, New York issued a total of 13. And even then, five of those free passes came in the first five innings Friday, over which LA scored five runs. The Dodgers scored only five runs (with eight walks) over the final 26 innings of the series.

“We saw it in the playoffs last year. When we gave them free passes, it ended up costing us,” Mendoza said. “Overall, the whole series, we did a better job of attacking those guys and executing pitches when we needed to.”

“All season, we’ve thrown the ball in the zone and challenged guys,” said Reed Garrett, who earned the save with a scoreless ninth. “We all believe we have the ability to do that. We’ve got really good pitchers, and a lot of them.”

This weekend presented strong evidence supporting that claim. Following Friday’s 13-inning loss, which saw all eight members of the Mets bullpen pitch, New York used a different hierarchy to shut down Sunday’s win. Ryne Stanek picked up Kodai Senga in the sixth, and Max Kranick threw two perfect innings as the bridge to Garrett.

Garrett had said he got out of himself a little in recent appearances against the Pirates and Yankees. He had to remind himself to just be himself.

“Who I am is enough,” he said. “I can go right after guys and not worry about trying to do too much.”

A dozen pitchers have thrown at least 10 innings for the Mets this season. The highest ERA within that cohort is Tylor Megill’s 3.56. Garrett owns the lowest ERA at 0.82 — two earned runs in 23 innings.

Not far behind him is Senga, who still looks like he’s feeling out his mechanics while leading the league in ERA anyway. Senga did not appear sharp much of the time on Sunday night. He held the Dodgers to one run over 5 1/3 innings despite that.

The key play for Senga was made in the first inning by Tyrone Taylor. With a run in on Shohei Ohtani’s leadoff homer and two runners in scoring position with nobody out, Will Smith flared a ball to right-center. Taylor tracked it down and, with his body moving into right field, pivoted and flung the ball on a fly home to nab Mookie Betts at the plate for the double play.

“That’s what makes him a special defender,” Mendoza said.

Taylor shrugged it off.

“I just threw it as hard as I could and fell over,” he said. “That’s just straight reaction.”

Senga again displayed a knack for getting all the big outs. He stranded two runners in the fourth and the bases loaded in the fifth. His strand rate for the season is over 86 percent, 10th-best in the sport.

That number may suggest imminent regression; the league strand rate is just under 73 percent. But Senga can mitigate that regression by harnessing his mechanics in a way he has yet to in 2025.

The exposition

The Mets took two of three from the Dodgers. They’re 32-21, two games behind the Phillies in the National League East.

The White Sox couldn’t finish off a sweep of the Rangers on Sunday. Nevertheless, it was Chicago’s fifth series win of the season; that’s a month earlier than it got its fifth last year. The Sox are 17-36.

The Rockies are still searching for their first series win of the year, coming one run short against the Yankees in Sunday’s rubber game. Colorado visits Wrigley Field early this week before continuing east to Queens. It is 9-44.

The pitching possibles

v. Chicago (AL)

RHP Clay Holmes (5-3, 3.13 ERA) v. RHP Adrian Houser (1-0, 0.00 ERA)
RHP Tylor Megill (3-4, 3.56) v. RHP Shane Smith (1-3, 2.36)
RHP Griffin Canning (5-1, 2.88) v. RHP Sean Burke (3-5, 4.33)

v. Colorado

LHP David Peterson (3-2, 2.79) v. LHP Kyle Freeland (0-7, 5.86)
RHP Kodai Senga (5-3, 1.46) v. RHP Antonio Senzatela (1-9, 6.50)
RHP Clay Holmes v. LHP Carson Palmquist (0-2, 11.88)

I looked up a stat

It probably does not surprise you that:

• The Mets’ offense has been a little worse in May than in March/April
• The top four of the Mets’ offense have been a lot worse in May than in March/April

In the first month-plus of the season, the Mets were sparked by Pete Alonso and Francisco Lindor; it felt like every big hit came from one of those two. They have cooled this month, with neither Juan Soto nor Brandon Nimmo picking up much of the slack.

However, the Mets’ offensive drop in May has been mitigated in a major way by production from the bottom four in their lineup. The sixth through ninth hitters have posted an OPS 100 points better this month than they did in March/April.

These stats are entering Sunday night:

The Mets’ best hitter this month has been Brett Baty, who batted ninth again on Sunday night. Mendoza said that while moving Baty up to fifth or seventh is tempting, he likes keeping him ninth both to ensure continued comfort and to help put the pitcher under stress as the lineup turns over.

Luis Torrens, who started a second straight day Sunday, has also been hot throughout May. Alonso’s OPS, for what it’s worth, was just .611 in May entering Sunday night.

Injury updates

Red = 60-day IL
Orange = 15-day IL
Blue = 10-day IL

• Nimmo was available off the bench Sunday night. While he is still day-to-day with a stiff neck, his hope late Sunday was to be in the lineup Monday afternoon.
• Paul Blackburn’s last rehab start will be Tuesday for Triple-A Syracuse. This will be Blackburn’s seventh rehab outing, a reflection less of his need for a prolonged onramp and more of the club postponing a decision on its rotation. The Mets will need a sixth starter the first week of June, and you can pencil Blackburn in to start the series opener in Los Angeles a week from Monday.
• Frankie Montas started his rehab assignment with Brooklyn on Saturday. Montas is likely to need close to the full 30 days for his rehab assignment before he’s ready.
• Sean Manaea threw a bullpen session Sunday, and his next step is to face hitters in a live BP setting. Like Montas, Manaea likely needs the full month for a rehab assignment, a July ETA. But if the Mets need them in the majors sooner than expected, their rehabs might be shorter than the full 30 days.
• Jose Siri is working through his running progression. Siri can run at about 80 percent of his full strength. He’s been hitting in the cage and occasionally on the field, and so once he’s running closer to his norm, a rehab assignment would be next.

Minor-league schedule

Triple-A: Syracuse at Iowa (Chicago, NL)
Double-A: Binghamton at Chesapeake (Baltimore)
High-A: Brooklyn v. Aberdeen (Baltimore)
Low-A: St. Lucie v. Palm Beach (St. Louis)

Last week in Mets

A note on the epigraph

I used to rate books on a 1-to-10 scale, though that scale generally clustered between six and eight. “Mrs. Dalloway” got a 6.5, the same grade I gave “The Sound and the Fury” and “The Handmaid’s Tale.” In retrospect, I might not have been a great grader.

Trivia time

Matt Harvey’s finest start with the Mets may have been the night he held the White Sox to an infield single over nine innings in 2013. The Mets took until the 10th to win the game, 1-0.

What outfielder, known more for his heroics to help out another Mets ace, came off the bench for the game-winning hit that night?

(I’ll reply to the correct answer in the comments.)

(Top photo of Kodai Senga: Elsa / Getty Images)

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