Mets' Kodai Senga placed on 15-day injured list with low-grade hamstring strain

NEW YORK (AP) — New York Mets right-hander Kodai Senga, the major league ERA leader, was diagnosed with a Grade 1 strain of his right hamstring Friday, hours after he was placed on the 15-day injured list.

Manager Carlos Mendoza said after the Mets' 7-5 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays that Senga will be shut down for two weeks before being re-evaluated.

“Talking to the trainers, they feel like we got some good news here,” Mendoza said.

Senga was injured covering first base on a grounder to Pete Alonso in the sixth inning of Thursday's win over the Washington Nationals. According to Mendoza, Senga said he felt his hamstring grab one stride before he made a leaping catch of Alonso’s high throw to retire CJ Abrams.

Senga is 7-3 with a 1.47 ERA for the Mets, whose starters have the lowest ERA in the bigs at 2.78 despite missing Sean Manaea (right oblique) and Frankie Montas (right lat), both of whom were injured in spring training.

Paul Blackburn will replace Senga in the rotation next Wednesday against Atlanta. Blackburn made his third appearance of the season Friday and was charged with four runs in one-third of an inning in relief of Clay Holmes.

“You hate to see it, especially talking about a guy like Senga with the way he’s been throwing the baseball,” Mendoza said before the game Friday. “But we also feel good with the pitching that we’ve got currently in place. They’ve been doing it the whole year and they will continue to do so.

“But losing Senga obviously is a tough one here.”

The leg injury is the second in as many seasons for Senga, who strained his left calf in his only regular-season start last July 26. After missing the first 102 games because of a right shoulder strain, Senga gave up two runs in 5 1/3 innings against the Braves before he was injured sprinting off the mound to clear room for Alonso to catch a pop-up by Austin Riley.

Senga returned to make three appearances, including two brief starts, in the playoffs.

To replace Senga on the active roster, the Mets recalled reliever Max Kranick from Triple-A Syracuse. Kranick took the loss Friday after giving up two runs in 1 2/3 innings.

The Mets are expected to get further rotation reinforcements soon with Montas and Manaea.

President of baseball operations David Stearns said Friday that Montas was expected to make two more starts in the minors, though that was before he allowed eight runs in 1 2/3 innings for Triple-A Syracuse as his ERA during his rehab rose to 13.17. Manaea has a 6.23 ERA in his first two rehab starts for Single-A Brooklyn.

“It’s a good thing to have more major league quality starting pitchers than less,” Stearns said. “I’m frankly never really concerned about having too much because as we saw (Thursday) and as I’ve experienced throughout my career, it’s very, very rare where you actually get to the point where you have too many starting pitchers that you can roster.”

Stearns said outfielders Jose Siri (left tibia fracture) and Jesse Winker (right oblique) are still nowhere near returning.

Siri, who fouled a ball off his shin against the Athletics on April 12, had his rehab paused this week after imaging showing his broken bone was healing slower than expected. Winker, who was injured May 4, is progressing but not close to beginning a rehab assignment.

Stearns also said left-handed reliever Brooks Raley, who underwent Tommy John surgery and had bone spurs removed in May 2025, is throwing live batting practice and could begin a rehab assignment next week.

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New York Mets pitcher Kodai Senga throws during the first inning of a baseball game against the Washington Nationals, Thursday, June 12, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Pamela Smith)

New York Mets pitcher Kodai Senga talks to staff after an apparent injury during the sixth inning of a baseball game against the Washington Nationals, Thursday, June 12, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Pamela Smith)

New York Mets pitcher Kodai Senga reacts after an apparent injury during the sixth inning of a baseball game against the Washington Nationals, Thursday, June 12, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Pamela Smith)

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iranian traders and shopkeepers staged a second day of protests Monday after the country’s currency plummeted to a new record low against the U.S. dollar.

Videos on social media showed hundreds taking part in rallies in Saadi Street in downtown Tehran as well as in the Shush neighborhood near Tehran's main Grand Bazaar, which played a crucial role in the 1979 Islamic Revolution that ousted the monarchy and brought Islamists to power.

Witnesses told The Associated Press that traders shut their shops and asked others to do the same. The semiofficial ILNA news agency said many businesses and merchants stopped trading even though some kept their shops open.

There was no reports of police raids though security was tight at the protests, according to witnesses.

On Sunday, protest gatherings were limited to two major mobile market in downtown Tehran, where the demonstrators chanted anti-government slogans.

Iran's rial on Sunday plunged to 1.42 million to the dollar. On Monday, it traded at 1.38 million rials to the dollar.

The rapid depreciation is compounding inflationary pressure, pushing up prices of food and other daily necessities and further straining household budgets, a trend that could worsen by a gasoline price change introduced in recent days.

According to the state statistics center, inflation rate in December rose to 42.2% from the same period last year, and is 1.8% higher than in November. Foodstuff prices rose 72% and health and medical items were up 50% from December last year, according to the statistics center. Many critics see the rate a sign of an approaching hyperinflation.

Reports in official Iranian media said that the government plans to increase taxes in the Iranian new year that begins March 21 have caused more concern.

Iran’s currency was trading at 32,000 rials to the dollar at the time of the 2015 nuclear accord that lifted international sanctions in exchange for tight controls on Iran’s nuclear program. That deal unraveled after U.S. President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the United States from it in 2018. There is also uncertainty over the risk of renewed conflict following June’s 12-day war involving Iran and Israel. Many Iranians also fear the possibility of a broader confrontation that could draw in the United States, adding to market anxiety.

In September, the United Nations reimposed nuclear-related sanctions on Iran through what diplomats described as the “snapback” mechanism. Those measures once again froze Iranian assets abroad, halted arms transactions with Tehran and imposed penalties tied to Iran’s ballistic missile program.

FILE — A currency exchange bureau worker counts U.S. dollars at Ferdowsi square, Tehran's go-to venue for foreign currency exchange, in downtown Tehran, Iran, April 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi, File)