That which seemed destined materialized quickly on Saturday at Citi Field. <\/p>\n
The Mets looked every bit like a team that had four times the number of wins as the Rockies as Kodai Senga turned in perhaps his finest pitching performance of the season and the Mets scored runs in bunches \u2014 four in the first inning and three in the fourth \u2014 in an 8-2 victory over Colorado before 41,681. <\/p>\n
The Mets (36-22) have won six of their last seven games and have captured three straight series. They can complete a three-game sweep of the Rockies (9-49) on Sunday before heading to Los Angeles for a second series against the Dodgers in a rematch of the 2024 National League Championship Series. The Mets took two of three from the 2024 World Series champs from May 23-25 at Citi Field. <\/p>\n
Senga was nothing short of brilliant for six innings before unraveling slightly in the seventh. He gave up a solo home run to Ezequiel Tovar in the first inning \u2014 only the third he\u2019s allowed in 11 starts \u2014 and nothing else until the seventh. After the home run, the righthander retired 17 straight Colorado batters. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe was outstanding,\u201d manager Carlos Mendoza said. \u201cHe had [his forkball] right away and they kept swinging at it . . . [It] made the fastball look like 98, 99 when he was 95, 96 because how much he was throwing it . . . All of his pitches [worked] and he attacked, got ahead and got some chases.\u201d <\/p>\n
Senga (6-3, 1.60) pitched to four batters in the seventh, issuing a pair of walks around a lineout and giving up a run-scoring single by Thairo Estrada that brought his outing to an end after 92 pitches. His final line: 6\u00a01\u20443 innings, two runs allowed, two hits, two walks, seven strikeouts. <\/p>\n
\u201cI want to finish my outings on a strong note, unlike today,\u201d Senga said through an interpreter. \u201cIn previous outings, too, when my pitch count rises \u2014 whether it\u2019s fatigue or just mechanically I start to become a little bit off. . . . I need to spend this time between this next start and rethink, revise and get stronger.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Mets gave Senga plenty to work with in the first inning. The first three Mets reached base \u2014 Francisco Lindor and Brandon Nimmo on singles and Juan Soto on a five-pitch walk \u2014 to load the bases. Brett Baty unloaded them with a triple off the left-centerfield wall for a 3-1 lead. <\/p>\n
\u201cI thought I hit it pretty hard, but it looked like he had a bead on it and I was like, \u2018All right, at least we\u2019ll get one run in,\u2019 but then it ended up hitting the wall,\u201d Baty said. <\/p>\n
Baty scored on Tyrone Taylor\u2019s two-out single. <\/p>\n
\u201cFour runs in the first is always big and it gave [Senga] the confidence to just go out there and pump strikes and let his stuff play,\u201d Baty said. <\/p>\n
Baty has been on a hitting tear since returning from his brief demotion to the minors on May 5, batting .290 with five home runs and 16 RBIs in 21 games. His hot hitting and stellar defense \u2014 he made another great play, coming in for a barehanded pickup on a weak grounder, and also caught a hot line drive \u2014 have pushed Mark Vientos into making more starts at designated hitter than at third base. <\/p>\n
The Mets\u2019 three-run rally in the fourth featured back-to-back home runs by Brandon Nimmo and Juan Soto, the ninth of the season for each. Both came off a sinker from Colorado starter Antonio Senzatela (1-10, 7.14). <\/p>\n
Nimmo\u2019s two-run shot was a 417-footer to right-centerfield. Soto\u2019s was a 404-footer to left-centerfield. He hadn\u2019t homered since May 9 \u2014 a stretch of 17 games \u2014 but he does have six RBIs in his last seven games. <\/p>\n
When he returned to rightfield for the fifth inning, fans serenaded him by chanting his name and he acknowledged them with a wave. <\/p>\n
\u201cJust a great feeling when you feel the support like that,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cFrancisco and I were [celebrating] down there and heard the sound of the bat and crowd going wild and we looked out and [were] able to see [Soto] go the other way,\u201d Nimmo said. \u201cThat\u2019s when he\u2019s his best and [there\u2019s] just signs of good things to come.\u201d <\/p>\n
Notes & quotes: Jeff McNeil hit a solo shot in the eighth, his third homer of the season. He also had his first stolen base . . . Nimmo came out of the game with a calf cramp but said it should not affect his availability for Sunday\u2019s game. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n\tRoger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"That which seemed destined materialized quickly on Saturday at Citi Field. The Mets looked every bit like a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70251,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2405],"tags":[5,167,52,4316,15605,4,61,168],"class_list":{"0":"post-70250","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-colorado-rockies","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-colorado","10":"tag-colorado-rockies","11":"tag-coloradorockies","12":"tag-gamer","13":"tag-mlb","14":"tag-new-york-mets","15":"tag-rockies"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114605941410539532","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70250\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}