The nightmare Mets season somehow got worse Tuesday night, and not just because they lost another game at Citi Field or got another bad start from Kodai Senga.
Juan Soto left their 9-6 loss to the Cubs before the top of the fifth with what the team called left-side back tightness.
Soto was removed from the game — their third straight defeat — in Queens, as Francisco Lindor was playing perhaps his final minor league rehab game with Triple-A Syracuse, having been sidelined since April with a strained left calf.
Now, having them both in the lineup together again may be in jeopardy.
Jared Young moved from first base to take Soto’s spot in left, while Mark Vientos entered at first base.
Soto flied out in both of his at-bats before leaving the game.
By then, the Mets already trailed by five runs, thanks to another clunker from Kodai Senga, who gave up seven runs in just 3 ²/₃ innings.
With the rotation a mess and the Mets so far unable to fix it, they can hardly afford another blow to the lineup, especially involving Soto.
While the rest of the team has fallen apart, Soto recovered from the calf injury well enough to enter Tuesday leading the team in most offensive categories, with a .974 OPS — second only to the Dodgers’ Shohei in the National League.
He’s been extremely durable throughout much of his career and missed just five games over the previous three seasons.
Now, the Mets are facing more time without Soto — and perhaps with Senga, despite his continued issues on the mound.
If you’re looking for the embodiment of this Mets team, Senga just might be it. He’s highly paid, injury-prone and severely underperforming.
On Tuesday, after David Stearns said the rotation would be evaluated “turn by turn,” Senga gave the Mets another reason to start anyone else.
He allowed seven runs, all earned, continuing a seemingly never-ending litany of subpar starts from an underperforming rotation.
They could get a boost this weekend, with Christian Scott expected to return from his IL stint, but Senga is part of a list that includes Freddy Peralta, David Peterson and Sean Manaea as significant disappointments.
“We do need to see production there,” Stearns said of the rotation. “We need to get later into games in competitive situations.”
That’s certainly true of Senga, who made his second start off IL after allowing four runs in four innings in his last outing.
He brought a 14.59 ERA over his past four starts into Tuesday.
And the situation did not improve.
Senga struck out the side in order in the first, but fell back into poor habits in the second, walking Seiya Suzuki to open the inning.
A single by Ian Happ and a hit by pitch by Matt Shaw loaded the bases with no one out.
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Senga whiffed Nico Hoerner before walking Carson Kelly to force in a run. Dansby Swanson followed with a sacrifice fly before former Mets prospect Pete Crow-Armstrong’s three-run homer made it 5-0.
The Mets got a pair of runs back in the bottom of the inning.
Edward Cabrera retired the first two batters, but the Mets loaded the bases and Francisco Alvarez’s two-run single cut the deficit to 5-2.
But with the bases full again, Bichette struck out to end the inning.
Senga gave up a two-run homer to Dansby Swanson in the fourth, while Alvarez added a homer in the seventh.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
