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The Mets were shut out for their major league-leading seventh time on Thursday when the Reds beat them 5-0 using a bullpen game. Yes, you read that right; the Reds’ powerhouse pitching staff got three scoreless innings from a 31-year-old pitching in the majors for the first time since 2019 and three more scoreless innings from a 32-year-old rookie.  The Mets have now lost five straight series and three straight to teams with losing records.

Marte’s Offense is Non-Existent 

You can look at multiple players who are struggling right now or have struggled for the season, but I believe the key piece is outfielder Starling Marte. We saw his importance to the Mets’ offense last year when they struggled to score runs with him on the injured list. Now, this year, he’s been arguably the Mets’ worst offensive regular with a miserable .563 OPS following Thursday’s loss. Marte hasn’t produced an extra-base hit since April 14th. That’s 76 at-bats without an extra-base hit, and he has 18 strikeouts compared to only three walks during that span.

Manager Buck Showalter certainly recognized Marte’s offensive blunders earlier this week when he dropped the veteran outfielder down in the lineup. Another sign that there’s likely a physical issue with Marte is that he’s stolen only two bases (two caught stealing) in his last 17 games after stealing seven (one caught stealing) in his first 15 games of the season. Marte left the game on April 19 with a sore neck and sat out the following two games.

Jeff McNeil went 1-for-13 in the series and Mark Canha went 1-for-7 lowering his season OPS to .652.

Inconsistent Senga

The sixth major league start for Kodai Senga was the tale of a first inning that the Reds put together a bunch of soft hits (only 1-of-5 was hard hit) to score four runs and then settled after. In the following four innings, Senga struck out five and allowed only one run in four innings. The Japanese right-hander set a career-low in walks issued with one, but also set a career-high with eight hits allowed.

Senga has a 4.14 ERA and 1.51 WHIP through seven starts, though he does have 43 strikeouts and is holding opponents to a .236 average in 37 innings pitched. The Mets will need Senga to be more consistent going forward, as their rotation continues to be a huge question mark.