Kodai Senga hasn’t quite been able to get himself back into a groove since making his return from the injured list before the All-Star Break.
The righty has struggled his last three times out, and that was again the case on Saturday.
Facing the Giants for the second time in a week — a situation he’s thrived in to this point in the season — Senga was forced to work through trouble in each of his four innings of work.
He danced around a two-on, one-out jam in the first, but then quickly loaded the bases after a double and two walks in the second, and the first run of the game scored thanks to a double play ball.
Senga almost put together his first clean inning of the afternoon in the third, but after issuing a four-pitch walk to Matt Chapman, former Met Dom Smith lined his third home run of the season to even things up at three.
San Fran jumped in front for the first time in the game in the fourth as the struggling Jung Ho Lee led off the inning with a hard-hit opposite-field double and scored two batters later on a Grant McCray single.
Senga was able to get through that frame without any further damage on his line, but he still closed his book with four runs allowed on five hits and three walks with four punchouts across just four innings of work.
“The biggest thing was the uncompetitive pitches,” he said through a translator.
“He’s having a hard time filling the zone right now,” manager Carlos Mendoza added. “A lot of three ball counts, walks, hit by pitch — he got behind in counts and when he came into the zone they were able to make him pay.”
Senga has now allowed three or more earned runs in four straight outings, and he’s completed five innings just once over that span.
While he insists his hamstring is back to 100 percent healthy, he feels that he may be overcompensating in certain areas mechanically which could be a reason behind the continued struggles.
Either way, the skipper isn’t too concerned just yet.
“He wants to be better, he’s a competitor,” Mendoza said. “We understand where he’s at, this is outing number four after he got hurt, so we understand it’s a process and it’s going to take longer for some guys coming back.
“I’m not worried about it, we’re not worried — but I’m pretty sure he’s frustrated because he wants to go deep into games and he wants to preform — and he will. So I’m not worried about it.”
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