Senga gets Game 1 nod against Dodgers; Mania on G2

NEW YORK — For the first time in weeks, given some rare rest in the National League Championship Series, the Mets had the luxury of setting their rotation exactly how they wanted.

Senga will start Sunday's series opener against the Dodgers, marking his third appearance in a year due to injury. Manager Carlos Mendoza, who made the announcement Saturday at Citi Field before boarding a plane to Los Angeles, said he expected Senga to last about three innings.

“From the beginning, we wanted to put our guys in what we thought was the best position to have success,” Mendoza said. “Same was the case with Senga. We wanted to keep it as close to his routine as possible.”

Notoriously regimented in his preparation, Senga typically pitches with five or six days' rest between starts, as opposed to four or five for most starts. He will work on seven days' rest for Game 1 after pitching two innings against the Phillies in Game 1 of the NL Division Series.

“More than happy or happy, I definitely have excitement inside me compared to other pitchers who have struggled throughout the year,” Senga said through an interpreter. “I was not able to do that. So I must be able to contribute, contribute and do my job in the following games.”

Senga said he hopes to be ready to start Game 5.

Left-hander Shawn Mania will start Game 2 on an extra day of rest Monday. Although Mendoza has not announced the rest of his NLCS rotation, he will likely go with Luis Severino in Game 3 and Jose Quintana in Game 4. Part of the motivation for starting Senga in Game 1, Mendoza said, was giving Severino some extra recovery time. . The right-hander has already thrown 104 2/3 more innings than last year and has a 5.14 ERA over his last five outings.

“If there's anybody that needs an extra day or an extra rest, it's Savi, especially where he's been with the innings and the workload and all that,” Mendoza said. “So we feel really good about it. And he's good with it.”

Senga, 31, strained the posterior capsule in his right shoulder early in spring training, knocking him out for the entire first half of the season. As he tried to recover from the injury, Senga suffered triceps discomfort and nerve inflammation. He finally returned to pitch on July 26 against the Braves, but Senga badly sprained his left calf in that game and did not return until Game 1 of the NLDS. Still undrafted as a starter, he threw two innings and 31 pitches in one. , allowing a leadoff homer to Kyle Schwarber but nothing the rest of the way.

He should be good for about 45-50 pitches in NLCS Game 1.

Senga said, “I don't have a number in my mind. “I'm going to go until they take the ball away from me and until then I'm going to give it 100 percent.”

The Mets' best pitcher in 2023, Senga went 12-7 with a 2.98 ERA and 202 strikeouts in 166 1/3 innings. It was the first season of his five-year, $75 million contract after 11 years pitching for Nippon Professional Baseball's SoftBank Hawks.

Senga has seen the Dodgers once before, limiting them to one run in six innings last July 15. A month later, he faced then-Angels star Shohei Ohtani, who reached base in all three of his plate appearances against him.

“A lot of great hitters in the lineup,” Senga said of the Dodgers. “If I leave a ball over the plate, they're probably going to hammer it.”

Behind Senga in Game 1, the Mets have a number of options — most notably right-hander Tyler Magill and lefty David Peterson, who are capable of providing length out of the bullpen. Peterson said he is preparing to throw multiple innings, as he did in Game 1 of the NLDS against the Phillies in three scoreless innings.

“If you look at obviously where Codai is, we're going to need some length,” Peterson said. “The last time he started I was one of the guys that was able to give some length. I'll be ready for it if that's what it takes, and I'll be ready for something short if we need it.”