{"id":71869,"date":"2024-04-29T21:59:41","date_gmt":"2024-04-30T01:59:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=71869"},"modified":"2024-04-30T15:54:13","modified_gmt":"2024-04-30T19:54:13","slug":"mets-kodai-senga-injury-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/04\/29\/mets-kodai-senga-injury-update\/","title":{"rendered":"Mets Ace Faces Hitters For First Time Since Shoulder Injury"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New York Mets could soon have their ace back. Right-hander Kodai Senga faced live hitters in a \u201cnasty\u201d batting practice Monday for the first time since his shoulder injury.<\/span><\/p>\n

Kodai Senga<\/span><\/a> has been <\/span>sidelined since early in Spring Training<\/span><\/a> with a strained posterior capsule in his right shoulder. He threw 21 pitches in live batting practice to a group of Mets prospects from High-A Brooklyn on Monday. Senga threw all of his pitches, and his fastball reached the mid-90s, in a batting practice one prospect called \u201cnasty.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Afterward, Senga said through his interpreter that he expects to return \u201cright around\u201d the day he\u2019s first eligible, May 27th. He added \u201cEverything\u2019s feeling solid. I think my rehab days have gone really well so far.\u201d President of Baseball Operations David Stearns later clarified saying he could return \u201cthat last week of May or early June.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Mets have taken things slow with the 31-year-old in hopes that he can avoid season-ending shoulder surgery. After his shoulder strain diagnosis, Senga went a full month without throwing a baseball. He then spent five weeks playing catch off flat ground and throwing bullpen sessions, before graduating to live batting practice.<\/span><\/p>\n

Kodai Senga “Nasty” In First Batting Practice Since Injury<\/h2>\n

Mets manager Carlos Mendoza was impressed by Senga’s mound session.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe way the ball was coming out, there was no hesitation,\u201d Mendoza said. \u201cHe was just letting it loose, using all of his pitches. Since he went down, the thing I\u2019ve been saying is, \u2018How is he going to bounce back?\u2019 I think the biggest thing is tomorrow and the following day. But so far, he looked pretty sharp today.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Senga will face hitters again in another live session on Friday, with three days of rest between each session. If all goes well in his next two sessions, he will begin a minor league rehab assignment around May 11th. The Mets will give their ace five days of rest between each rehab start. So, his return date will vary based on how many rehab starts the Mets feel the right-hander needs.<\/span><\/p>\n

Kodai Senga went 12-7 with a 2.98 ERA and 202 strikeouts in 29 starts for the Mets last year. He finished seventh in Cy Young voting and runner-up for NL Rookie of the Year in his first season in the majors after arriving from Japan. This is Senga\u2019s second year of a five-year, $75-million contract he signed with the Mets after 11 seasons in Japan.<\/span><\/p>\n

Main Photo: \u00a9 Gregory Fisher-USA TODAY Sports<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The New York Mets could soon have their ace back. Right-hander Kodai Senga faced live hitters in a \u201cnasty\u201d batting practice Monday for the first time since his shoulder injury. Kodai Senga has been sidelined since early in Spring Training with a strained posterior capsule in his right shoulder. He threw 21 pitches in live […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4975,"featured_media":71985,"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":[1071,22],"tags":[4683,1146,1160,1285],"class_list":["post-71869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mlb","category-mets","tag-carlos-mendoza","tag-cy-young","tag-david-stearns","tag-nl-rookie-of-the-year"],"modified_by":"Matt Graves","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71869","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\/4975"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71869\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}