A common thread for Yankees’ Jhony Brito and Mets’ Kodai Senga: Proving they are starting pitchers

I don’t know what the hell that was, so let’s have a big picture conversation about Jhony Brito instead.

“That,” of course, was an 11-2 Yankees loss Thursday to the Twins in which Brito allowed seven runs in 2/3 of an inning. He had been 2-0 with a 0.90 ERA in his first two MLB starts, and is still in possession of a live fastball and elite changeup. We assume he won’t have many more games as unspeakably horrible as this one.

But that doesn’t mean Brito has proven that he has a wide enough repertoire to be a big league starter. In fact, an understated theme of his first three starts mirrors that of Kodai Senga, who takes the ball in the Mets’ next game, Friday in Oakland: Both have a high-90s fastball and one plus off-speed pitch. And both need to show a consistent breaking ball in order to satisfy questions about their ultimate role.

This is not a knock on Brito and Senga. Far from it. Brito was outstanding before this clunker, and in Senga’s second start of the year, a smashing success, he flashed a solid slider and cutter.

But with the rare exception of a Jacob deGrom, Spencer Strider or Carlos Rodon, starting pitchers are expected to have more than two pitches with which they can get outs. Even Rodon, who became a star with a fastball/slider combo more suited to a closer, says that he wants to expand his repertoire.

During Senga’s first start against the Marlins in Miami, I was texting with a rival evaluator whose team classified Senga as a reliever while scouting him prior to his free agency. That club didn’t bid because “it was starter money and he might end up in the bullpen.” They weren’t the only ones.

That evaluator saw nothing in Senga’s debut to dissuade him from his opinion. There was a live fastball and a “ghost” forkball that fell off the table, as dominant as advertised.

The cutter and slider? “They were okay,” the evaluator said.

Senga’s next start, also against the Marlins, was a bit more balanced. Tasked with facing a lineup for the second time in a week, Senga threw his cutter a bit more, though he only got one whiff with his slider. The game plan was for him to induce more than that with the pitch, according to sources.

The results were terrific anyway: six innings, one run. Senga has been an effective starter so far, as he was in Japan. But because of the specifics of his repertoire, you can be sure that if the Mets’ rotation was at full strength, Senga would be in the discussion for candidates to replace the injured Edwin Diaz this season.

Here in reality, the Mets need Senga in the rotation, just as the Yankees need Brito in theirs. With Rodon out in the short term, Frankie Montas out for the season and Clarke Schmidt struggling (Domingo German has actually had one very good start with a line spoiled by the bullpen and one clunker, so he gets a pass for now), Brito is the next man up.

His season began well, as that dazzling changeup drove his first two wins. On Thursday, too many of Brito’s pitches caught too much of the strike zone. Most surprisingly, not even the changeup was good.

“[With] the changeup, the execution was the same,” Brito said through a translator. “The grip was the same. The release point was the same. It’s just the action that was not the same. In trying to make the adjustment, you try to get it, you fight with it so that you can get back to the action you’re used to. It’s just, nights like this, it was tough. You’re trying to make the adjustment but it just wasn’t there tonight.”

So it goes. The changeup will be strong again. As Anthony Rizzo put it, “You’re going to take your lumps in this league.”

The real questions about Brito involve those breaking pitches. Before the game, manager Aaron Boone said that it was too soon to say whether Brito’s slider or curveball would emerge as the stronger option.

“That remains to be seen,” Boone said. “He can land them both, and it’s a strike pitch for him … He’s a young man. We’ve seen him developing in front of our eyes over the past year with more velocity and him getting bigger and stronger. So we’ll see. We’ll see what turns out to be best for him.”

Boone was talking about specific pitches, but he could easily have been talking about Brito’s ultimate role.