The Mets’ pitching staff continues leading the way early on.
On Monday night, it was Kodai Senga’s turn and he battled through some cold weather to put together five strong innings of work facing a Marlins lineup he saw just six days ago in his first outing of the season.
As was the case in that meeting, Senga fell into some trouble in the first inning after allowing a walk and a single to the first two batters, but this time he was able to escape the threat with some help from Hayden Senger’s first career caught stealing.
The right-hander made some adjustments and settled into a groove from there -- before he was faced with some traffic in both the fourth and the fifth -- but he used a pair of double plays balls to again dance his way out of danger.
Overall, he allowed two walks and five hits while striking out four in five shutout frames.
“That first inning I could tell they did their homework,” Senga said through a translator. “They researched me up pretty good -- but we had a good gameplan tonight, Senger did a good job calling the game and we had good results.”
Carlos Mendoza said he probably could’ve returned to the mound for the sixth, but with it still being so early in the season, he decided to turn things over to the bullpen.
Danny Young entered and worked around a leadoff single in the sixth, before Jose Butto stepped up with two scoreless innings of work, and then Ryne Stanek slammed the door shut with his first save as a Met.
With four more scoreless innings, the bullpen now has a league-best 1.13 ERA on the season.
“It’s very much pass the ball off to the next guy and keep the line moving,” Stanek said. “Guys just see the guy in front of them doing their job and don’t want to be the one that doesn’t -- guys are throwing the ball good, attacking the zone and just getting after it.”
And it’s not just the bullpen who has been getting the job done.
The starters haven’t been working deep into games in the early going, but they’ve still been putting together terrific results of their own -- the 1.72 team ERA is the second-best produced through the first 10 games of the season in franchise history.
“It’s a combination of a lot of things,” Carlos Mendoza said. “But I said it before the game, it’s contagious, it’s like hitting -- they’re feeling pretty good about themselves right now. They know that they have each others back and that’s a good feeling as a unit.”