Three notable pitching performances for the Mets on Saturday
Plus, the bullpen was excellent in an all-around great day for Mets pitchers
What’s Up with the Mets? 🌴
The Mets defeated the Cardinals in Jupiter 3-2 on Saturday afternoon (box)
RHP Kodai Senga made his long-awaited Grapefruit League debut, surrendering two solo homers and notching two K’s. He hit just shy of 99 mph on his fastball, a velocity he hasn’t reached since 2023
Luis García, Luke Weaver, and Brooks Raley were all solid in relief once again, with Weaver making a terrific play to beat out a runner at first
No.7 prospect Jack Wenninger was terrific to close out the game, allowing three hits against five strikeouts in three scoreless innings to earn the win
RF Mike Tauchman continued his strong spring showing with an RBI double in the sixth to get the Mets on the board
2B Wyatt Young flashed some leather on a game-saving throw to the plate in the ninth to maintain the Mets’ lead en route to the win
Saturday, March 7:
Clay Holmes was exceptional for Team USA, delivering three scoreless innings in relief of Tarik Skubal. Holmes allowed just one hit while striking out six of the nine batters he faced, walking none and securing the win
Mark Vientos had another tough outing for Nicaragua, going 0-for-5 with two strikeouts, one of which came with a bases-loaded opportunity in the 5th inning
Ben Simon also had a rough night, recording a single out in his start for Israel while allowing four runs on three hits and a walk
Schedule | Standings | Scores
What I’m Reading 📰
New year, new Kodai Senga (MLB.com)
For 17-year-old Brazilian pitcher Joseph Contreras, homework is more important than Aaron Judge (The Athletic)
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Today’s Game 🏝️
Match-up: Mets (6-5) vs. Yankees (10-4)
Where: Clover Park - Port St. Lucie, FL
Starters: RHP Freddy Peralta (1-0, 0.00 ERA) vs. LHP Ryan Weathers (1-0, 0.00 ERA)
When: 1:10 PM EDT
Where to Watch: WPIX
Kodai Senga’s spring debut, Clay Holmes’ shutdown effort for Team USA, and another promising arm impressing ✍️
In both Grapefruit League and WBC play, Mets arms showed up to play on Saturday.
In Jupiter, FL, Kodai Senga and Co. combined for a gritty team win over the Cardinals, supporting three late-inning runs with scoreless relief frames. In Houston, TX at Daikin Park, Clay Holmes took the pill to relieve Tarik Skubal and issued an utterly dominant performance against Great Britain’s bats.
There’s a lot to unpack, quite a bit of which is encouraging. Let’s dive right in:
Kodai Senga
It wasn’t a perfect return to the mound, but Senga showed promising signs in his first game action since last August.
Since pitchers and catchers first reported, we’ve gotten several positive quotes from Carlos Mendoza and David Stearns about Senga’s health coming into camp and the early work he’s been putting in. Mendoza reiterated some of those same sentiments in his comments yesterday, stating that he “hasn’t seen this before” from Senga in camp.
This performance was better than it looks on paper. Though he had some trouble finding the zone and wasn’t exactly a swing-and-miss machine, location really seemed to be the bulk of the issue. It didn’t look like there were any lingering biomechanical problems to worry about, and I have to assume he’ll rein in his command as he gets more game action.
The main concern I have here is that his ‘unhittable’ stuff looked fairly hittable whenever he did place it in the zone. When the fastball was hit, it was hit hard, and elicited an in-zone swing rate of 90%. Looking at the Pitch 3D data, it was arriving at the plate on a predictable flight path; that’s even better illustrated by its 0% whiff rate on the day. Similarly, his famed ghost fork, though an incredible chase weapon and swing-and-miss generator, was responsible for two of his three hits yesterday, including a homer that snuck over the wall.
Still, placement and homer hiccups aside, seeing Senga near 100 mph on the gun is an excellent sign. It’s a testament to his health, his strength, and his current confidence in his stuff. That’s the correct (and necessary) mentality to carry into the season, for Senga and the entire staff. There’s a good base to build from here, and I’m looking forward to seeing where his spring goes from here.
There’s no way to know what the Mets are going to get from Senga in 2026. The last two years have been a general mess for him short of the first three months of the 2025 season, which is all the club has to hang its hat on with him. Senga might be an ace, he might be unpitchable, and there is always some sort of soft tissue injury that might crop up for him too. But one thing that seems notably different is Senga himself, in that he is more agreeable to pitching every five days, seems like less of a high-maintenance personality, and appears generally more engaged in the Mets process than he has been in the past.
Will that all translate into better health and good results? We shall see.
Jack Wenninger
Wenninger’s performance yesterday was a nice bounce back for the youngster after his five-walk effort against the Astros last Sunday.
Yesterday, Wenninger delivered three scoreless innings to close out the game, and though it came with some stress, it was a crucial moment for the 23 year old to experience and survive, which he did. He issued zero walks and still kept runs off the board after incurring baserunners — at a base level, mission very much accomplished.
As usual, Wenninger’s changeup was the shining star of his repertoire, responsible for seven whiffs and four of his five strikeouts. It’s a dominant pitch when it’s dialed in, and it plays well off his fastball, which sat around 96 mph on Saturday. It plays all over the zone, but Wenninger has found the most success with it this spring when he keeps it low and lets it fall off the table.
As with Senga yesterday, the primary red flag with Wenninger at the moment seems to be one of consistent location. It appears to mostly become an issue when he’s under pressure, and I’ll chalk some of that up to a lack of experience and nerves, but he’s also shown a tendency to miss up high with some pitches that should only be living low in the zone. That’s something I’ll be watching the rest of spring training, as a sustained pattern there could indicate some bad habits that need to be unlearned.
Wenninger’s arm is no slouch — he’s a mid-90s fastball guy. But in this era, he’s going to rely on his slider and change-up a lot, and there’s clearly some room for him to develop that off-speed stuff more. He probably projects as a mid-to-back end rotation arm for the Mets, if for no other reason than the sudden emergence of talent at the top of their pitching prospect depth chart between Nolan McLean and Jonah Tong. Regardless, he’s the team’s next-best pitching prospect in a group that also includes Jonathan Santucci and Will Watson.
Though Wenninger is all but guaranteed to be starting the year in Triple-A, if he continues building on performances like we saw today and finds more control of his pitch catalog, I think a late-season cup of coffee is a perfectly reasonable forecast for his 2026 campaign.
Clay Holmes
Just about every tool in Holmes’s bag was working for him last night. Saturday’s outing was an impressive showcase of stuff that has clearly been refined further over the offseason and start of camp, with some more aggressive movement profiles and pitch shapes on display.
Needing just 38 pitches to get through his three innings, Holmes generated a 44% whiff rate across his sinker, sweeper, and changeup. His changeup was particularly filthy, with a 100% whiff rate helping to lock in two of Holmes’s six strikeouts.
Forgive my brevity here, but there really wasn’t much to dislike about Holmes’s outing. He neared 97 mph on his fastball, missed barrels entirely, kept the ball out of play, and issued no free bases. The movement on his pitches was elite, as his pitch chart and 43% chase rate indicate – every one of his strikeouts came on something nasty diving out of the zone.
Based on the movement data, Holmes’s pitches are biting a bit more than usual — there are several observed shape adjustments happening, with more lateral movement across the board and what looks like an even more devastating changeup. The eye test confirmed that movement last night, as his breaking stuff was basically untouchable. The changeup was thrown around 90 mph with a sub-1000 RPM spin rate, which is what creates that splitter-esque shape that plummets towards the plate. It was an essential pitch for him last year, and seeing it working at full force this early further reinforces the confident tone Mets officials and media struck when talking about him in the early days of camp.
With a year of starting experience under his belt, it’s perfectly reasonable to expect an even stronger performance from Holmes in 2026. The question for Holmes is whether or not he can put together a full season’s worth of innings consistently. He was so good in the first half last year, then clearly hit a wall — understandable considering it was his first full season as a starting pitcher, and his first time starting at all since 2018.
If he maintains what he’s shown off so far this spring, and if Senga stays healthy, the Mets could prove to have one of the league’s more formidable units.
Around the League 🚩
Great Britain’s Trayce Thompson made the catch of the Classic with a leaping grab into the right field stands to rob Team USA catcher Will Smith of a home run (watch)
Ozzie Albies hit a three-run walk-off homer to seal the Netherlands’ win over Nicaragua. It was the first walk-off home run in WBC history
Darell Hernaiz hit a walk-off homer in the 10th inning as Puerto Rico stole a victory away from Panama
Stuart Fairchild hit a clutch two-run homer in the eighth to help Chinese Taipei take a late lead and eventually beat Korea in extra innings to improve to 2-2 after starting the WBC winless (watch)
Luis Arraez hit two homers in back-to-back innings to help fuel Venezuela’s victory over Israel
Seiya Suzuki homered twice in Japan’s 8-6 victory over Korea; Shohei Ohtani and Masataka Yoshida also homered
I love what I'm seeing on the bump. Everyone is stepping up a level. That's a hidden effect of Nolan McLean's emergence, I think; that mentality of competing on every pitch can be infectious.
The fact everyone is upping their game rather than being resentful of the rook is a very, very healthy sign.
Wenninger really looked good. I'd be happy if Baty won the 1b job, Polanco was parked at DH, and Tauchman is the first bat off the bench. Things not looking good for Vientos at this moment.