Two pitches in to Sunday’s rubber match between the Mets and the Los Angeles Dodgers, Shohei Ohtani took Kodai Senga deep for a solo shot that gave the Dodgers an immediate 1-0 lead.
Los Angeles would quickly put runners on second and third with nobody out in what looked like could be Senga’s first real bad outing of the season.
Instead, with some help from Tyrone Taylor‘s fantastic throw from center field, Senga escaped the inning without allowing another run. The leadoff home run ended up being the only run Senga allowed over 5.1 innings — on a night he didn’t quite have his patented ghost fork working, either.
“He made huge pitches because I didn’t think he had the forkball today,” manager Carlos Mendoza said after the Mets’ 3-1 win. “From the very beginning when you watch that Freddie Freeman at-bat in the first inning, he was fouling pitches off, he was laying off. Then Will Smith laid off one of them too and you could tell that he didn’t have it.
“And then a few 2-0 counts, but I just thought that he kept making pitches. We made some big plays – that play in the first inning that Tyrone Taylor threw to home plate was huge. He kept battling. He used the cutter even though I don’t think he had that pitch either, but he found a way and for him to go back out there for the sixth and get us one out there, it was important. That goes to show you how good he is on a night that he’s not at his best against a lineup like that, he’s able to keep us in the game, make pitches when he needed to and gave us a chance.”
Aside from the first inning, Senga still had to deal with traffic on the bases for most of the night. The right-hander allowed five hits and walked four against what he described as a “clever” Dodgers lineup as his command continues to be a bit of problem.
But regardless of the situation, no matter how stressful, Senga was able to work his way out of it. It’s something he’s beginning to be known for now in his career — getting out of sticky situations.
“I used my whole repertoire,” Senga said through an interpreter. “Used every pitch in all sorts of situations and I was able to get through it.”
It wasn’t just Senga, though, as Ryne Stanek, Max Kranick and Reed Garrett combined for 3.2 scoreless innings against one of the top offenses in baseball. Kranick, in particular, shined as the right-hander pitched two innings and hasn’t been scored upon in his last three appearances (5.1 innings).
Really all weekend New York’s pitching dominated the Dodgers. And if the Mets’ offense was able to produce just one hit in extra innings on Friday night, they would’ve swept Los Angeles.
“We attacked,” Mendoza said about what his pitchers did well against the Dodgers. “We saw it in the playoffs last year and we gave them free passes and it ended up costing us. We saw it today with Max Kranick, perfect example. Coming in in that situation, attacking hitters, staying on the attack, make them swing the bat and let the defense take care of itself.
“I thought overall, the whole series, I thought we did a better job of attacking those guys and executing pitches when we needed to.”
The series win against one of the top teams in the National League came at a great time for New York who was coming off back-to-back series losses against the Yankees and Boston Red Sox.
The Mets improved to 32-21 — the same record as the Dodgers — and are now 2.0 games behind the Philadelphia Phillies who lost earlier on Sunday against the Athletics.
“For us to bounce back the way we did and taking the last two, winning a series against a really good team, obviously, it shows a lot about that group — our ability to bounce back, the grit, the resilience and it was on display the whole weekend there,” Mendoza said.
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