NEW YORK -- Before Kodai Senga made the National League All-Star team, Mets manager Buck Showalter said, he had mapped out his work schedule in detail through the All-Star break -- bullpen sessions, recovery days, games of catch and the like. Senga knew the Mets wanted him to pitch Saturday against the Dodgers, so he focused his energy on that singular calendar box.

Days later, when Senga was named a replacement pitcher for the National League team, he weighed the benefits of playing in Seattle versus sticking to the routine he had crafted. The Mets did not pressure him in either direction, despite their obvious preference for him to focus on the regular season. Much as he did last winter in declining an invitation to pitch for Japan in the World Baseball Classic, Senga came to the difficult decision to withdraw on his own.

It was a rested Senga, then, that held the Dodgers to one run over the first six innings of a 5-1 loss on Saturday, proving again why the NL All-Star team wanted him. The Mets struggled to do much with the outing, losing their fourth straight game in ugly fashion despite Senga’s efforts. But the night did serve to solidify a trend: Beyond being an All-Star, Senga has quite clearly been the Mets’ best pitcher and one of their top players overall.

“Kodai’s pitched really well,” Showalter said. “We hate to waste that.”

Before Pete Alonso’s errant throw allowed the go-ahead run to score in the eighth inning at Citi Field, and before the Mets squandered a first-and-third, no-outs rally in the bottom half, and before Brett Baty dropped a pop-up en route to a three-run Dodgers outburst in the ninth, there was vintage Senga: masterful and in control. Much as he has done in recent weeks, Senga relied on his upper-90s fastball, low-90s cutter and put-away forkball to limit the Dodgers to one run -- a Mookie Betts homer on a pitch that nicked the outside corner -- in six innings.

Senga’s only real trouble occurred in the sixth, when he loaded the bases on a single, a hit batsman and a walk. But he struck out J.D. Martinez and subsequently induced a chopper back to the pitcher’s mound, where he leaped to grab it and kill the rally.

“I know that I needed to hold them to a zero there, because it was right after we scored and tied the game up,” Senga said through an interpreter. “I didn’t want to lose momentum for the team, so to be able to get out of that was big.”

All told, Senga struck out nine and walked two, continuing to demonstrate marked improvement in his control and efficiency.

Senga’s first 11 starts:
3.75 ERA, 1.44 WHIP, 2.03 K/BB ratio

Senga’s last six starts:
2.37 ERA, 1.00 WHIP, 3.77 K/BB ratio

Senga leads Mets pitchers in both widely accepted versions of WAR, proving consistently effective in ways that Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander have not. His 122 strikeouts are the third-most by a Met through the first 17 starts of his career, trailing only Dwight Gooden and Nolan Ryan, and the third-most by a Japanese-born rookie through 17 starts for any team. He’s become the precise type of pitcher the Mets hoped he might be when they signed him to a five-year, $75 million contract over the winter despite the relative guesswork that goes into scouting and evaluating international players.

Senga, in other words, is holding up his end of the bargain. It’s his teammates who are not. The Mets have mustered just 12 hits over their last four games combined, falling a season-worst nine games out of a Wild Card spot in the process. It is relatively easy to lead a team in WAR when stars such as Alonso, Jeff McNeil, Scherzer and Verlander are scuffling.

“Not good enough,” was how reliever Adam Ottavino described the state of things. “I don’t know how else to really say it. When it comes to team play, it’s about wins and losses. We’ve lost the last four games. That’s not what we’re looking to do.”

For the Mets, it has been a season of boos, a season of lost chances, a season of frustration. Senga is one of the few within the clubhouse who hasn’t really been at fault for any of it.