Mets takeaways from Thursday's 11-1 win over Diamondbacks, including another dominant effort from Kodai Senga
The Mets secured a series victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks with an 11-1 win in the series finale on Thursday afternoon at Citi Field.
Here are some takeaways...
- Kodai Senga took the ball for the Mets in this one and he continued his stretch of dominant pitching. With the shadows at Citi Field working in his favor, the righty got off to a strong start, striking out six and allowing just one hit over the first three innings.
- Merrill Kelly was also taking advantage of the shadows, setting the Mets down in order over the first two innings. However, he opened the third by walking three straight batters, and Brandon Nimmo made him pay with a first-pitch two-run double.
- Senga came back out for the fourth with a lead for the first time and he put together the elusive shutdown inning, picking up two more strikeouts. He continued cruising in the fifth, pushing his stretch to 13 batters retired in a row, and hitting the double-digit mark in K's.
- The Mets' offense blew things open for Senga in the bottom half of the inning, putting up a five spot. Pete Alonso picked up his 109th RBI with a run-scoring double, followed by a DJ Stewart two-run single. Jeff McNeil then capped things off in a big way, crushing his ninth home run of the season, a two-run shot to make it a 7-0 ballgame.
- Senga began to run out of steam in the sixth as he allowed a leadoff single and eventually issued back-to-back two-out walks, but he was able to get Christian Walker to fly out, stranding the bases loaded and ending his day on a high note. The ace right-hander allowed just two hits while walking two and striking out 10 over six shutout innings.
Senga earned his 11th win and 15th quality start through 27 outings this season. He now sits third in the National League with a 2.95 ERA and seventh with 191 strikeouts, to go along with a 1.21 WHIP.
- Francisco Alvarez tacked on another run with a two-out RBI double in the bottom of the seventh, driving in Alonso who drew a leadoff walk. The rookie backstop is now hitting .263 with five RBI and a 1.023 OPS over his last seven games.
- With the Mets up big late, they decided to give some of their bench players at-bats in the eighth, and they took advantage of the opportunity. Tim Locastro lined an opposite-field single followed by a Jonathan Arauz three-run homer, making it an 11-1 ballgame. Arizona then turned to position player Seby Zavala, who recorded the last two outs of the inning.
- Behind Senga, Phil Bickford tossed a scoreless seventh inning followed by Jeff Brigham, who allowed Arizona to score their first run of the game in the eighth and then put up a scoreless ninth to secure the game and series win.
- The Mets scored a total of 25 runs over the final three games of this series, 14 of which came against Kelly and NL Cy Young candidate Zac Gallen.
Highlights
Upcoming schedule
The Mets welcome young star infielder Elly De La Cruz and the Cincinnati Reds on Friday night for a three-game series at Citi Field.
Left-hander David Peterson (3-8, 5.34 ERA) takes the ball for New York against hard-throwing right-hander Hunter Greene (4-6, 4.43 ERA) at 7:10 p.m. on SNY
