New York Mets right-hander Kodai Senga, the major league ERA leader, was diagnosed with a Grade 1 strain of his right hamstring Friday, hours after he was placed on the 15-day injured list.
Manager Carlos Mendoza said after the Mets’ 7-5 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays that Senga will be shut down for two weeks before being re-evaluated.
“Talking to the trainers, they feel like we got some good news here,” Mendoza said.
Senga was injured covering first base on a grounder to Pete Alonso in the sixth inning of Thursday’s win over the Washington Nationals. According to Mendoza, Senga said he felt his hamstring grab one stride before he made a leaping catch of Alonso’s high throw to retire CJ Abrams.
Senga is 7-3 with a 1.47 ERA for the Mets, whose starters have the lowest ERA in the bigs at 2.78 despite missing Sean Manaea (right oblique) and Frankie Montas (right lat), both of whom were injured in spring training.
Paul Blackburn will replace Senga in the rotation next Wednesday against Atlanta. Blackburn made his third appearance of the season Friday and was charged with four runs in one-third of an inning in relief of Clay Holmes.
“You hate to see it, especially talking about a guy like Senga with the way he’s been throwing the baseball,” Mendoza said before the game Friday. “But we also feel good with the pitching that we’ve got currently in place. They’ve been doing it the whole year and they will continue to do so.
“But losing Senga obviously is a tough one here.”
The leg injury is the second in as many seasons for Senga, who strained his left calf in his only regular-season start last July 26. After missing the first 102 games because of a right shoulder strain, Senga gave up two runs in 5 1/3 innings against the Braves before he was injured sprinting off the mound to clear room for Alonso to catch a pop-up by Austin Riley.
Senga returned to make three appearances, including two brief starts, in the playoffs.
To replace Senga on the active roster, the Mets recalled reliever Max Kranick from Triple-A Syracuse. Kranick took the loss Friday after giving up two runs in 1 2/3 innings.
The Mets are expected to get further rotation reinforcements soon with Montas and Manaea.
President of baseball operations David Stearns said Friday that Montas was expected to make two more starts in the minors, though that was before he allowed eight runs in 1 2/3 innings for Triple-A Syracuse as his ERA during his rehab rose to 13.17. Manaea has a 6.23 ERA in his first two rehab starts for Single-A Brooklyn.
“It’s a good thing to have more major league quality starting pitchers than less,” Stearns said. “I’m frankly never really concerned about having too much because as we saw (Thursday) and as I’ve experienced throughout my career, it’s very, very rare where you actually get to the point where you have too many starting pitchers that you can roster.”
Stearns said outfielders Jose Siri (left tibia fracture) and Jesse Winker (right oblique) are still nowhere near returning.
Siri, who fouled a ball off his shin against the Athletics on April 12, had his rehab paused this week after imaging showing his broken bone was healing slower than expected. Winker, who was injured May 4, is progressing but not close to beginning a rehab assignment.
Stearns also said left-handed reliever Brooks Raley, who underwent Tommy John surgery and had bone spurs removed in May 2025, is throwing live batting practice and could begin a rehab assignment next week.
Reporting by The Associated Press.
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