WEST SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Kodai Senga’s performance improved as the innings progressed Sunday.
By the seventh, the Mets right-hander still was bringing his fastball at 96 mph and breezing through the A’s lineup. Maybe the only question was whether he would get a shot at least to start the eighth.
That opportunity was denied by manager Carlos Mendoza, but Senga still finished with the best start by a Mets pitcher this season in the team’s 8-0 victory in the series rubber game at Sutter Health Park.
Senga, who threw 79 pitches, allowed four hits over seven shutout innings with four strikeouts and two walks, retiring 11 of the final 12 batters he faced. Senga’s final two batters, Seth Brown and Gio Urshela, each struck out.
It was a second straight start in which Senga didn’t allow a run, including his five scoreless innings against the Marlins last week.
He became the first Mets starter this year to work into the seventh. David Peterson was the only previous Mets pitcher to complete six innings in a start this season.
It was a sloppy game offensively for the Mets until the ninth, when they piled on four insurance runs with help by A’s defensive lapses.
To that point, the Mets were 1-for-9 with runners in scoring position and had stranded 11, but that still was enough to spoil Luis Severino’s reunion with his former teammates.
Severino, already at 101 pitches, was allowed to remain in the game to face Luis Torrens with two outs in the sixth. Torrens won the battle, stroking an RBI single for the game’s first run.
Over 5 ²/₃ innings, the veteran right-hander allowed one run on four hits with six strikeouts and three walks. Severino averaged 97.3 mph with his four-seam fastball.
Two days earlier Severino revealed he would have accepted less money to remain with the Mets, but the team wasn’t receptive. Severino received a three-year contract worth $67 million from the A’s. He said he conveyed to the Mets he was willing to accept a two-year deal for $40 million.
The Mets extended Severino to 33 pitches in the first inning following a throwing error by second baseman Max Muncy on Juan Soto’s grounder but couldn’t score. Pete Alonso hit into a double play before Brandon Nimmo was retired.
Nimmo doubled in the fourth, and Torrens drew a two-out walk before Brett Baty extended his at-bat against Severino to a 10th pitch. Severino, after a visit to the mound from catcher Shea Langeliers, threw a cutter that Baty swung at and missed to end the inning.
The Mets turned two double plays behind Senga early to lighten his workload. In the second, following a Francisco Lindor throwing error, Senga got Jacob Wilson to hit into a 5-4-3 double play. In the third, Senga surrendered consecutive singles to begin the inning before a grounder to Baty at third by Brent Rooker started another double play.
In the sixth, Alonso drew a leadoff walk against Severino and reached third on successive groundouts. Torrens followed with his second single of the game to give the Mets a 1-0 lead.
Lindor stroked an RBI double in the seventh for the game’s second run. Tyrone Taylor was drilled by a pitch to begin the inning, and after Luisangel Acuña bunted into a fielder’s choice, Lindor delivered a double to left-center. Mark Vientos drew a bases-loaded walk against Noah Murdock with two outs to extend the Mets’ lead to 3-0.
Taylor tripled in the eighth and scored the Mets’ fourth run when Jose Leclerc balked on a pickoff throw to third base.
In the ninth, Vientos smacked an RBI double before Brown lost Torrens’ fly ball in the sun for a run-scoring double.
Baty tripled in the inning’s third run, and the Mets extended the lead to 8-0 on Taylor’s grounder off the shortstop’s glove.
