CLEVELAND -- Throughout the past three years, as
“I do think in his right arm is 100 miles an hour and a nasty forkball,” interim manager Andy Green said, “and that profile plays for a late-inning reliever.”\n\nEven when Senga was starting games, team officials encouraged him to rely more fully on his two elite pitches, his four-seamer and forkball. Though Senga never quite embraced that strategy, he may do so now, knowing he’ll no longer need to navigate through lineups multiple times. To that end, Senga opened Tuesday’s outing with six consecutive fastballs, reaching 98.8 mph on the radar gun before finally turning to another pitch.
For the Mets, this is an experiment. Senga, who has little trade value, remains under team control for one more season at $15 million. At this point, the odds of him contributing to the rotation in a meaningful way are low, given his 8.66 ERA this season and the fact that he’s only pitched 163 1/3 innings since his first full year in New York in 2023, when he threw 166 1/3 innings. But if the Mets can coax any value out of him as a reliever, Senga could still become a useful part of their 2027 team.\n\n“We’ll see how he responds over the next few weeks, and we’ll reserve the right to pivot back to the rotation if we think that’s the right thing for him and for us,” Green said. “Where we’re at right now, just want to see him take the ball in one of the next couple of days for one inning, and attack it like you would expect a leverage reliever to attack it.”\n\nFor Senga, the new role is a necessary evil. When Mets officials informed him of their decision on Tuesday afternoon, Senga relented, but reminded them that he signed as a starter and eventually wants to return to the rotation.\n\n“Whatever role is given to me, I’m going to throw in that role -- regardless of what I say,” Senga said through an interpreter. “If I say I want to be a starter, the team could tell me, ‘Just look at your stats.’ And I don’t have anything to say back to them.”
**Lock, Stock and two games started** \n
A big-league reliever from 2018-21, Stock spent the next four years bouncing around to Korea, Mexico, the Dominican Republic and even the Atlantic League’s Long Island Ducks before making it back for two brief stints with the Red Sox in 2025. That was enough for the Mets to offer Stock a Minor League contract in the offseason, but he subsequently underwent surgery to address symptoms of arterial thoracic outlet syndrome before Spring Training.\n\nNow, Stock has a chance to remain in the Mets’ rotation, so long as he pitches well enough to warrant it. Eventually, the Mets may choose to take another look at their No. 2 prospect Jonah Tong (No. 75 overall), who has spent almost this entire season in the Minors.
**LuBob’s second act** \nDespite speculation that the Mets may trade him at the Deadline, outfielder
Robert started Tuesday’s series opener against the Guardians in center field and will man that position regularly over the season’s final two months. But the Mets also want to give A.J. Ewing reps in center, so they may soon experiment with Robert at a corner -- somewhere he has never played in his MLB career. Robert has just 14 games of professional experience in left and right field combined, the last of those coming at Double-A in 2019.
**The happy ligament club** \nAmong six new players on the active roster Tuesday were