In the second game of their weekend series, the Mets host the Giants at Citi Field.
Kodai Senga is scheduled to pitch for New York, while Kai-Wei Teng will take the mound for San Francisco.
Mets vs. Giants prediction, preview
Kodai Senga is taking the mound for the Mets on Saturday. Senga missed a chunk of the season with an injury, but when he has been on the mound, he has been fantastic. He has a 2.00 ERA, the third-best mark in baseball among pitchers with at least 80 innings thrown. Senga has a 1.21 WHIP on the season and is giving up just 0.7 home runs per nine innings. He isn’t allowing power, isn’t walking batters and has completely shut opposing hitters down. The Giants rank 25th in the MLB in runs scored and 26th in OPS this season. Their lineup shouldn’t be able to get to Senga and the Mets should get a good start out of their ace.
Kai-Wei Teng is making his first appearance of the season for the Giants. Teng made his MLB debut in 2024, but he only made four total appearances, and none of them were starts. He only pitched 11 total innings and gave up 12 earned runs in those 11 innings. He has been decent in Triple-A this season, with a 3.67 ERA in 25 appearances. However, even at the Triple-A level, he has only made four starts this season. His strikeout numbers have been off the charts, with 14.3 strikeouts per nine innings in Triple-A ball. However, this stage will be completely different as he faces the likes of Juan Soto, Francisco Lindor and Pete Alonso at a packed Citi Field. If it’s anything like Teng’s other MLB appearances, he will likely only be able to pitch a couple of innings and give up several runs to this Mets lineup.
Mets vs. Giants pick, best bet
The Giants took the first game of this series in extra innings on Friday night. The Mets were unable to score a run in the bottom of the 10th inning to tie the game, and they will be looking for revenge today. They have a massive advantage in the starting pitching department for this game. Senga is a true shutdown starter, while Teng has minimal MLB experience. The Mets’ bats need to jump on Teng early and push him out of the game, forcing the Giants to go to their bullpen as soon as possible. After trading their top two bullpen arms before the deadline, one of them to the Mets, the Giants are thin in the bullpen. If the Mets can jump on Teng early and get a quality start out of Senga, they should win this game.
My best bet for this game is a same-game parlay of the Mets first five innings moneyline and the Mets -1.5 on the full game run line. This could end up being a game that the Giants punt and use Teng and other low-level relievers to chew up innings. If the Mets crush Teng early and Senga is in his usual dominant mode, the Mets should easily win the first five innings. If they have a comfortable lead, they might save their best relievers for Sunday and the Mets could win this one comfortably.
