Kodai Senga, Mets doomed by key error in loss to Marlins

MIAMI — Throughout last season, as Kodai Senga struggled with injuries, seemingly returned to health and continued to sit out as he tried to sort out his mechanics, Mets officials insisted: Nobody knows Senga better than Senga knows himself. So they were best off waiting for him to feel ready.

Ahead of his solid first start Tuesday in a 4-2 loss to the Marlins, a re-debut of sorts after a lost 2024, Senga offered a perhaps innocuous assessment that nonetheless proved the point: Nobody knows Senga better than Senga knows himself.

“There’s always a little bit of worry,” he said through an interpreter. “The most important [part] is that first inning. Getting through that is going to be big.”

Senga indeed had trouble in the opening inning but then settled in just fine, navigating five innings on a limited pitch count (77) and allowing four runs (two earned). He struck out eight — all swinging, including each of the first six on his signature forkball — walked one and limited Miami to three hits. Just one of those came after the first.

Altogether, it was another sound effort in a first turn through the rotation full of them for the Mets. Their starting pitchers have a 3.08 ERA in five games.

When the Marlins reached Senga for two runs in the first, he assisted via meatballs. Leadoff man Xavier Edwards doubled on a fastball over the heart of the plate and one pitch later Kyle Stowers crushed a home run on a middle-middle heater.

But then Senga figured it out. He retired 10 of the next 12 batters, the lone exceptions reaching on a pair of fielding errors from Francisco Lindor.

The second miscue from Lindor opened the door for a Miami rally that stood as the difference. He booted Otto Lopez’s routine ground ball to open the bottom of the fourth. It was just the second time in the past six years that Lindor committed multiple errors in a game.

Later in the inning, with two outs that could have been three, Jonah Bride worked a walk against Senga, laying off back-to-back forkballs with two strikes. Graham Pauley then came through with the eventual game-winning hit, pummeling a center-cut cutter into the left-centerfield gap for a go-ahead, two-run double.

The result hardly took away from what was overall an encouraging start for Senga, who is perhaps the most important pitcher on the Mets in 2025.

“He’s a big part of this team, he’s a big part of the rotation,” manager Carlos Mendoza said before the game. “We saw what he was able to do in 2023. He basically became the ace of the team. Not having him last year hurt. He knows it, everybody knows it. Our goal is to keep it that way: making sure that he continues to throw the ball well, continues to recover and keep him healthy throughout the year.”

The Marlins’ ace, Sandy Alcantara, making just his second start in his return from Tommy John surgery in late 2023, limited the Mets to two runs in five innings. Miami pulled him after just 70 pitches.

Brandon Nimmo homered in the second in get the Mets a run back. Lindor drove in the temporary tying run in the third, when his ground ball snuck up the middle against a drawn-in infield, bringing in Luisangel Acuna. It was his first hit of the season, snapping an 0-for-12 skid. He slammed his bat to the ground on the way to first.

The Mets had two on with one out in the ninth inning. But Anthony Bender retired Mark Vientos and Jesse Winker.