Mets' Kodai Senga set for limited pitch count to start season
Mets pitcher Kodai Senga throws during a spring training workout in Port St. Lucie, Fla., on Feb. 20. Credit: Newsday/Alejandra Villa Loarca
PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — Kodai Senga is, by all accounts, a healthy pitcher. His spring training has gone smoothly. He is just about ready for a new season.
As a residual effect of his injury-marred mess in 2024, however, he will open 2025 on a more limited pitch count relative to the Mets’ other starting pitchers.
When Senga makes his first start, penciled in for April 1 against the Marlins in the fifth game of the season, he will be held to about 75 pitches, a team official said. Given the Mets’ ultra-careful buildup of Senga throughout camp, it likely will be a couple of starts or more before he handles a full starter’s load of 95 to 100-ish pitches.
The Mets are comfortable with Senga making shorter starts at the beginning of the season in the hope that it will help keep him healthy. He pitched in one regular-season game last year, wedged between shoulder, triceps and calf issues.
“Given that last year I didn’t throw very many pitches, that base is kind of gone now,” Senga said through an interpreter recently. “Am I a little bit worried? Sure, there’s a little bit of worry. But I’m on the same page with the coaches, the training staff, everybody on the team. They’re doing their best to keep me on the field, and I’m doing what I can to stay on the field.”
Whereas starters typically add an inning and 10 to 15 pitches with each spring training appearance, the Mets have had Senga repeat steps — parts of four innings, 50 to 60 pitches — because of what he endured last year.
Consider his past three outings:
March 9 (in a minors scrimmage): 3 1⁄3 innings, 50 pitches.
March 14 (vs. Cardinals): 3 1⁄3 innings, 53 pitches.
Thursday (at Nationals): 3 2⁄3 innings, 58 pitches.
When he faces minor-leaguers again on Wednesday in his final preseason tuneup, he is due to make a pitch-count jump into the 60s.
That stands in contrast with converting reliever Clay Holmes, for example. He threw 88 pitches in an exhibition Friday. Tylor Megill also got up to 88 Saturday in a 5-5 tie with the Nationals.
Senga’s goal for the season is to compile 162 innings, he said. That is the threshold to qualify for statistics leaderboards. It also would mean a full, healthy year. He figures the rest will take care of itself.
“If I’m able to stay healthy, that means I’m probably putting up decent numbers,” he said. “They go hand in hand. If I’m performing poorly, something isn’t right mechanically, which may lead to me getting injured. If I’m performing well, my mechanics are probably good and I’m able to stay on the field.”
Manager Carlos Mendoza said: “He is on a mission.”
Extra bases
The Mets drew 7,800 fans at Clover Park, their second-largest spring training crowd since they moved here in 1988 . . . Johan Santana, in camp as a guest instructor, and Carlos Beltran, in uniform as a special assistant in the front office, spoke to Mets minor-leaguers Saturday morning . . . The Mets announced an Opening Day watch party at Blue Haven South, a bar in lower Manhattan, featuring two special guests: Terry Collins and Noah Syndergaard, who has not pitched since the Guardians cut him in August 2023.
Tim Healey is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. Born on Long Island and raised in Connecticut, Tim has previously worked for the South Florida Sun Sentinel, the Boston Globe and MLB.com. He is also the author of “Hometown Hardball,” a book about minor league baseball in the northeast.
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