Williams' absence opens door for Senga in bullpen
Eric Samulski digs into Devin Williams' first season with the Mets following his trip to the injured list before exploring how his absence will impact New York's bullpen.
Video Transcript
The Mets placed closer Devin Williams on the 15-day IL with a right shoulder strain on Monday.
Williams hadn't pitched since August 7th, when he allowed two runs on three hits in one inning, so clearly he was impacted by something in that outing as well.
On the season, he's pitched to a 4.66 ERA, a 1.66 WHIP, and a 51 to 21 strikeout to walk ratio in 38 and two-thirds innings in his first year for the Mets.
He converted just 16 of 19 save chances so far, and some of the underlying metrics suggest that he was a bit unlucky.
He had a 3.29 expected ERA, but a really elevated, .388 BABIP, which suggests that he was getting a little bit unlucky on balls in play, even though he was certainly not as crisp as we've seen him in years past.
With Williams on the IL, it was Kodai Senga who got the first save opportunity on Monday in a win over the Braves.
Senga struck out Matt Olson and Michael Harris in a hitless inning.
Senga has been working in short relief since being moved out of the rotation.
His fastball is sitting about 97, 99 miles an hour, in his short relief stints.
His secondary pitches have also increased in velocity as well.
And some of the command issues that have really plagued Senga as a starter are mitigated somewhat in the bullpen.
And so Senga is an interesting relief pitcher flyer if you're looking for saves over the final few weeks of the season, because we don't have a timeline on when Devin Williams might return.
