Well, they didn’t lose 12-0.
Nope, on Tuesday night the Mets fell behind 4-0 in the first, but then won the rest of the game 3-1, which is a roundabout way of saying they lost 5-3 [1]. Kodai Senga [2] somehow only gave up two hits over four innings, but those two hits came in the form of 800 feet worth of first-inning home runs; saying Senga settled down after that is like saying he attended to barn doors with aplomb once equine residents were no longer present to pose distractions.
Senga’s struggles were dispiriting enough, but the Mets also continued their recent tic of being mind-bogglingly hopeless with the bases loaded, collecting zippo for their sacks-drunk efforts in the third and the fourth innings. Their runs came on an RBI single by Bo Bichette [3], who seems to have turned back into the hitter we thought were getting in April (hey it’s something), and a moonshot by Mark Vientos [4], whom it still feels like damning with faint praise to say has looked better of late. But you know what? Mark Vientos has looked better of late!
So no, not a 12-0 loss where the only suspense was if Luis Torrens [5] was going to be frog-marched out to the mound. Still, it never really felt like the Mets were coming back — a bloop and a blast seemed as unlikely as the Mets scaling Everest without oxygen. Insult to injury: What in the world was Marcus Semien [6] doing squandering the Mets’ last challenge with two outs and a four-run deficit in the second inning? Francisco Alvarez [7]‘s slightly earlier challenge was at least psychologically defensible, as he was trying to get a spooked pitcher back in harness, but what was Semien thinking?
While not fuming about miscellanous Mets misdeeds, I kept coming back to Senga. We’ve forgotten, amid so much that’s gone wrong, just how good the 2023 edition of Senga was — dart of a fastball, evil ghost fork, no chance for opposing hitters. 2024 was a lost season, but 2025 was going swimmingly until an errant throw by Pete Alonso [8] brought everything crashing down, yet to be reassembled.
Now? I don’t know who the Kodai Senga out there is — and I doubt the man himself has an entirely firm grasp on answering that question. He couldn’t land his breaking pitches Tuesday night, with the ghost fork only occasionally flickering to life, like a flashlight plucked off a basement shelf and whacked into fitfully working order. No pitcher in today’s game is terribly effective with just a fastball — well OK, maybe Jacob Misiorowski [9] is — but Senga’s looks like it’s lacking the bite it used to have, and which he sorely needs.
So what’s wrong with Senga? You’ve got me.
Maybe it’s the latest in a cascade of injuries — a lot of pitcher maladies are, with the game’s dopey omerta preventing us from hearing what exactly was wrong until it’s been fixed. (Unless, of course, whatever’s wrong isn’t fixed at all for some baffling reason. Cough, Sean Manaea [10], cough.)
Maybe it’s that Senga’s persnickety near-obsession with his own mechanics has sent him down a rabbit hole he can’t escape — sometimes Senga reminds me of Ron Darling [11], a smart pitcher who might have been better off as a baseball player if he’d been a little dumber.
Maybe it’s something else — at several points over the last three seasons, the Mets have let slip a certain degree of exasperation about what page they’re on versus what page Senga is on, the kind of disconnect teams rarely allow to be seen in the modern game, and which therefore speaks volumes.
All I know is it’s been like this long enough that a bleak weariness has settled over all involved: the team, the fans, Senga himself. The Mets could sure use a healthy, happy Senga, but does that pitcher exist anymore? Maybe all the Met voices have become so much Peanuts adult noise for Senga; maybe he needs to hear other voices to get back to what he was. You hate to think it — it’s a long-winded way of saying “OK, we give up” — but sometimes giving up becomes best for all involved.