Kodai Senga gave the Mets seven strong innings and Mark Canha drove in three runs to lead the Mets to a 5-1 win over the Pirates Saturday afternoon in Pittsburgh. The win snapped a 7-game losing streak for the Mets and raised their record to 31-34.
It looked like a bad matchup on paper for Senga, who has had his best success this year versus teams that aggressively chase pitches out of the strike zone. The Pirates had the second-lowest chase rate coming into the day. But Senga, once again pitching on four days rest, came out and had a good game.
It was an odd mixture of great plays and errors for the defense behind Senga. Brandon Nimmo, who drove in the first run of the game, made a leaping catch in front of the 399 marker on the outfield wall with two outs and the bases loaded to keep the Pirates off the board. Nimmo also made a nice diving grab later in the game, although not with the same impact of his earlier catch.
But the Mets also committed three infield errors behind Senga, which led to an unearned run in the fourth inning. The Mets had two chances to turn double plays that inning and came up empty both times. However, one of them was a blown call by the umpire, who ruled that Luis Guillorme dropped the ball before making the transfer, not during the transfer, as appeared to be the case in real time and was definitely the way it happened when viewed on replay.
The game remained tied until the seventh inning, when Canha delivered a two-run double to give the Mets a lead they would not relinquish. Canha later added an RBI double in the ninth for the final run of the game. Canha now has two doubles and two homers in his last nine games, showing some much-needed power for the lineup.
Senga ended up going seven innings for the Mets, getting nice defensive help from Canha and Guillorme in his final inning. It was terrific to finally get both quality and quantity from a starting pitcher and today’s effort from Senga ups the Mets’ record when their starter goes at least six innings to 17-1.
During the Game Chatter, Chris F noted how the losing streak was really exposing the team’s flaws. But good starting pitching covers up a lot of sins. It’s remarkable how few times the Mets have had a starter throw at least six innings, which has happened just 28% of the time so far this season. If you want to be optimistic about 2023, you can feel like the Mets can turn things around if their starters begin to pull their weight.
Francisco Alvarez swatted his 12th homer of the season with a solo shot in the eighth inning off of former Met Colin Holderman. The offense has now scored 31 runs in the last five games.
Funny, I watched the Guillorme play on both the Mets and Pirates broadcasts. The Mets’ announcers said that he dropped the ball while making the transfer; the Pirates’ announcers said that he never “squeezed” the ball in his glove and therefore didn’t have possession before making the transfer. Of course, the Mets’ guys were right.
Enjoyed the chatter in the game even though it was just us!
It’s possible to cover the holes with a win and a nice start, but we still are seeing the holes in Epplers team. And they are substantive. Like the proverbial broken clock being right twice a day, every team will win and look good at some point, and for some time, even the 62 Mets and 23 As, but that cannot conceal the glaring holes.
Vientos should get 500 reps a day at 1B just to learn the position in case Pete goes down.
Mauricio needs promotion.
Volgelback needs to be DFAd.
We need to ask SD to get Sanchez back to be DH
We need to change up the relief pitchers
And Scherzer and Verlander need to be locked in prison with no access to the outside world until they can sort out stopping the garbage plates they’ve been serving.
Anyone can participate in Game Chatters at the big sites and play along with a couple of hundred other people. But my opinion is that fewer people leads to more quality interaction. I’d like to see us get 20 people in a chatter. Somewhere around that should be the sweet spot between no down time and easy-to-follow interactions and too much repetitive garbage and little chance for quality discussion.
Nice win and much needed. Canha heating up keeps him in the lineup. Hoping Vogelbach sitting on the bench is a precursor to a DFA. Was looking for an injury update on Mauricio but can’t find one. We need offense. Like the new bullpen additions. Can’t be any worse than who they replaced.