Kodai Senga roughed up, Juan Soto exits with injury as Mets fall to Cubs

Abbey Mastracco, New York Daily News on Jun 23, 2026

Published in Baseball

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NEW YORK — When 2026 Kodai Senga is on the mound, runs are rarely prevented.

The Chicago Cubs rocked Senga on Tuesday night at Citi Field, handing the Mets a 9-6 loss. The right-hander threw 98 pitches over only 3 2/3 innings, and to make matters worse, star slugger Juan Soto also left the game with tightness on the side of the left part of his back.

It’s become clear that Senga is a liability.

With an ERA of 10.08, the Mets can’t afford to keep running him out there every 5-6 days. The problem, however, is that their options are limited. They don’t have a clear replacement in Triple-A. They’ve already tried using Jonah Tong and Zach Thornton and sent both back to Syracuse. They had hoped to stretch out Tobias Myers in Triple-A this month, but were unable to do so.

If the Mets can’t get another pitcher from outside the organization, then they either have to run Senga out there again or use the bullpen to cover his turns through the rotation. With the rotation’s inability to go deep into games, they probably can’t afford bullpen games every five days.

“At this time of year, there generally isn’t a ton of external supplementation to do, so that’s always a part of it,” president of baseball operations David Stearns said Tuesday afternoon. “Another part of it is, we think those guys are more talented than we’ve seen so far this year, and throughout periods of their career, they’ve demonstrated that.”

The Mets continue to say they’re waiting for struggling players to play up to their potential, and Stearns reiterated that again Tuesday. But the sample size this year is now large enough to determine that the team the Mets envisioned is not the team they’re getting.

They need Senga to pitch like he did in 2023, and they need David Peterson and Sean Manaea to pitch how they did in 2024. They need Bo Bichette to hit with runners in scoring position the way he has throughout his career, and they need Mark Vientos, Brett Baty and Francisco Alvarez to become the players they were supposed to become when they were highly-rated prospects.

Few players on the roster are who the Mets need them to be at the moment, and it’s unlikely they will be before the July 31 trade deadline. The Mets need to find out why so many of their players are struggling to this extent, and why their analytical models didn’t accurately project this season.

But first, they need to get creative. They need to make some changes to mitigate the damage instead of waiting for the team to “prove” that their 35-43 record is just an aberration.

Senga pitched a 1-2-3 first inning, but that was far from representative of what was to come. After Cubs’ right-hander Edward Cabrera retired the Mets in order in the bottom of the first, Senga gave up five runs in the top of the second.

He loaded the bases before getting an out, and after the first one, he walked in a run. A deep fly to left field by Dansby Swanson scored another to give Chicago (41-37) a 2-0 lead with two outs. Facing the top of the order, Senga went 1-0 on Pete Crow-Armstong before the center fielder took him deep for a three-run shot.

It shouldn’t have been over then, but it was. The Mets got two runs back in the third, but Senga gave up two more before exiting the game. The seven runs were all earned, and they came on three hits. He walked five and struck out six.

Alvarez homered off right-hander Phil Maton in the bottom of the seventh, and the Mets scored three times in the bottom of the ninth, with Bichette hitting a two-run homer off right-hander Jayden Murray. It mattered little by then.

Cabrera held the Mets to two earned runs on three hits, walking four and striking out four over five innings. He was carted off the field with a hamstring injury.