{"id":71798,"date":"2024-04-29T23:45:24","date_gmt":"2024-04-30T03:45:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=71798"},"modified":"2024-04-29T23:42:57","modified_gmt":"2024-04-30T03:42:57","slug":"kodai-senga-nearing-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/04\/29\/kodai-senga-nearing-return\/","title":{"rendered":"Mets Ace Getting Closer to Making His Return"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>New York Mets ace <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/s\/sengako01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-04-29_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kodai Senga<\/a>, who has not pitched since February due to a shoulder injury, is nearing a return, as he faced hitters today for the first time in that span. He&#8217;s expected to return on May 27th when eligible. The 31-year-old Japanese pitcher made his Nippon Professional Baseball debut in 2012 for the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks. He played for them until 2022. Senga is also a three-time NPB All-Star and a one-time MLB All-Star. This is a big step he has taken on his journey to recovery.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Kodai Senga (strained shoulder capsule) faced batters today for the first time since February. He says he&#8217;ll need to do so twice more before a rehab assignment.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;As long as things keep going well, I think I&#8217;ll be back right around [May 27],&#8221; Senga said through an interpreter.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Anthony DiComo (@AnthonyDiComo) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AnthonyDiComo\/status\/1785032209319047312?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">April 29, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Kodai Senga Is Slowly Making His Return<\/h2>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Kodai Senga faces live batters for the first time as he continues working his way back \ud83d\udc7b <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/8ASzjzPiHt\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/8ASzjzPiHt<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 SNY (@SNYtv) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SNYtv\/status\/1785029025477353976?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">April 29, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s only about a month before Senga is set to return to the Mets. Looking at the video above, you can see that Senga has some wild head movement when he throws. Mets manager Carlos Mendoza talked about how, with Senga, there wasn&#8217;t any uncertainty when he was pitching. Senga also talked about how he felt good after pitching to batters and throwing fastballs in the mid-90s. As long as things continue to progress well for him, he expects to return when he is eligible.<\/p>\n<h3>Taking A Closer Look At Senga<\/h3>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Kodai Senga&#8217;s City Connect glove \ud83d\udc7b<\/p>\n<p>If you know NY, you know \ud83d\ude08 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/ALItEBsHAH\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/ALItEBsHAH<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 MLB (@MLB) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MLB\/status\/1784293952184545751?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">April 27, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>In 2023, Senga had impressive numbers, recording a 2.98 ERA with a 12-7 record and 1.220 WHIP. He has a five-pitch repertoire comprised of a fastball that averages around 96 mph (topping at 100 MPH), a cutter, a slider, a sparingly thrown curve, and a forkball. Those who have watched him pitch over the years consider his forkball, known as the &#8220;Ghost Fork,&#8221; to be his best pitch. Senga\u2019s fastball typically maintains velocity late in games, and unlike many other Japanese pitchers historically, Senga\u2019s stamina could be his strongest asset.<\/p>\n<p>Senga is a pitcher with eminent international experience in baseball. In 2017, he earned a spot on the All-World Team in the World Baseball Classic. In addition, at the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo, Senga dominated Team USA in the gold medal game. He has been a starting pitcher and at one point earned himself three successive Japan Series championships (2017 to 2019).<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s always exciting to see a pitcher return from an injury, as MLB has had so many <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/04\/29\/rookies-pitchers-throwing-hard\/\" target=\"_self\">pitchers go on the IL<\/a> due to arm and elbow injuries. Today, for example, it was confirmed that Toronto Blue Jays prospect <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/register\/player.fcgi?id=barrie000bra&amp;utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-04-29_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Brandon Barriera<\/a> will be undergoing Tommy John surgery. But when one door closes, another one opens, and Senga is nearing his rehab starts. He will face live batters two more times as he did today at Citi Field. It&#8217;s all about taking things slow and steady for himself. Fans were certainly excited to see Senga again on the field and the mound.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Photo Credit: \u00a9 Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New York Mets ace Kodai Senga, who has not pitched since February due to a shoulder injury, is nearing a return, as he faced hitters today for the first time in that span. He&#8217;s expected to return on May 27th when eligible. The 31-year-old Japanese pitcher made his Nippon Professional Baseball debut in 2012 for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4831,"featured_media":71881,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[22,1071,35],"tags":[5795,2310,6456,840,976],"class_list":["post-71798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mets","category-mlb","category-news","tag-brandon-barriera","tag-japanese-pitchers","tag-kodai-senga","tag-starting-pitcher","tag-world-baseball-classic"],"modified_by":"Lewis Masella, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4831"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71798\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}