Kodai Senga hits 96 mph as spring debut takes surprising Mets turn

PORT ST. LUCIE — At long last, the ghost has reappeared. 

Kodai Senga was back on the mound for a game Monday, having talked his way into Grapefruit League action for a Mets team that would have preferred more bullpen sessions and live batting practices. 

After a bizarre 2024 season, Senga’s 2025 has begun with a small dash of confusion and two strong, scoreless innings against the Marlins at Clover Park. 

The stated plan for Senga earlier in the day entailed throwing a single inning before building up his pitch count on a bullpen mound.

Manager Carlos Mendoza said Senga could do a second inning of work if his first inning was particularly efficient. 

Senga ended up throwing 15 pitches in a scoreless first and then returned for the second, a surprise that further demonstrated the pitcher wants to compete. 

“He was pretty open about [wanting to pitch in games],” Mendoza said before the game. “We were pretty much the one that [suggested] we’ll finish in the back fields or just in the bullpen.” 

In his first action of the spring, Senga looked sharp. 

Of his 31 pitches, 20 were strikes.

He touched 96 mph with his four-seam fastball.

He used just one ghost forkball — against which Derek Hill singled — but he may have been saving his most devastating offering, a tactic he employed in 2023 spring training. 

He allowed just two base runners and struck out two while inducing five swings and misses.

He had to scramble to cover first base on what became an infield single and did so without incident. 

“Just very pleased that I’m able to get out of it healthy,” Senga said through interpreter Hiro Fujiwara. “There were a lot of things that I wanted to try out that I was able to. Just great to be out there.” 

He worked on a tweaked slider that induced a violent whiff on a strikeout from Otto Lopez.

He toyed with a sinker that could add one more weapon to his arsenal. 

He looked a lot like the potential ace the Mets hope he can be once more — and might need him to be. 

Already down Frankie Montas (lat strain) and Sean Manaea (oblique), the Mets will have to rely heavily upon Senga, who looms as a particularly volatile variable this season. 

In 2023, he emerged as an ace in his first season in the majors and improved as the season got longer, eventually receiving Cy Young votes and finishing with a 2.98 ERA. 

Last season he went down in spring with a posterior capsule strain in his shoulder, which was the first setback in a season of them. 

Last May, the Mets said Senga was healthy, but paused his rehab progression because he was not confident in his mechanics.

Senga did not appear in a minor league game until July 3, and did not see a major league mound until July 26. 

The 5 ¹/₃ innings he threw against the Braves that day would be his only work of the regular season.

An electric outing ended with Senga chasing a pop-up and straining his calf coming off the mound.

Senga would not be seen on the mound again until the postseason, when he tried to build up on the fly and was lit up twice in three appearances in which he was charged with seven runs in five innings. 

After a normal offseason, Senga entered camp a healthy pitcher and arguably the club’s most important.

The Mets have insisted upon incremental steps, to the point they would have preferred Senga to continue building up away from game action. 

Yet Senga wanted to see a game already, which brought him back to the Grapefruit League on Monday. 

“We’re building him up to be a normal player, a normal starter for us when we break camp,” Mendoza said of Senga, who could be ready for 70-80 pitches in his first regular-season start. “We feel like we got time.”