When Mets manager Carlos Mendoza called for Tylor Megill to begin the seventh inning on Wednesday night, he made clear why he might have no choice but to send Kodai Senga out for another start in this series.
The Mets’ pitching is close to gassed. Veteran starters Sean Manaea and Luis Severino, way over their innings totals from last season, are not recovering as quickly between starts as they did for much of the year, according to people familiar with the situation. Jose Quintana says his arm feels fine, but the staff is watching him very closely.
That does not mean that those players are injured; they are not. It is common to be more tired in October. But as we saw when Manaea hit what he described as a “wall” in the fifth inning in Game 2, it impacts the length and, by extension, quality of performance.
Reliever Jose Butto, a key high-leverage arm for the team, has exited the circle of trust, and veteran Phil Maton has allowed runs in two of four October appearances and hasn’t always been available.
The fact that Mendoza can no longer push his starters as deep into games as he did during the pennant race and early postseason means that he needs Megill to cover innings. On Wednesday, Severino gutted through 4.2 innings but struggled with fastball command — often an indicator of fatigue — and left 13 outs on the table for the bullpen.
Although Butto is right-handed, his changeup is a weapon against lefties. Because Mendoza can’t reasonably summon Butto for a big at-bat against the likes of Shohei Ohtani and Freddie Freeman, he needs to save Peterson for those situations.
Mendoza went to Megill in the seventh to save the rest of that pen, a reasonable decision that took Megill out of consideration for the Game 5 start.
All of the above adds up to why the Mets probably have “no choice,” as one source put it, to start Senga in Game 5. Senga suffered from a lack of command during his Division Series start in Philadelphia, and the free-swinging Phillies helped him out. He regressed badly in Game 1 of the NLCS in Los Angeles, throwing just 10 of 30 pitches for strikes.
Both Senga and the Mets front office insist that he is healthy, and needs to work on his mechanics.
Perhaps if the Mets do not need to use Peterson in Game 4, they could consider starting him the next day. But they might not be able to afford losing him in the bullpen for Game 6 and possibly Game 7.
Still, say they are facing elimination in Game 5. Could they really trust the current version of Senga with their season on the line?
That’s a decision the Mets can only avoid by winning on Thursday.