Kodai Senga makes Mets believers in 'ghost fork' pitch
Mets pitcher Kodai Senga during a spring training workout, Sunday Feb. 19, 2023 in Port St. Lucie, Fla. Credit: Newsday/Alejandra Villa Loarca
PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla.
Everyone showed up Sunday at Clover Park to catch a glimpse of the ghost.
Mets owner Steve Cohen, down visiting the complex for the long holiday weekend, was perched behind the batting cage alongside former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, now on the team’s board of directors.
Manager Buck Showalter was there. So was general manager Billy Eppler. All of them were locked in on Kodai Senga, who was facing Mets hitters for the first time.
This was no ordinary live batting practice session, either. Senga was coming off a self-described “so-so” bullpen session a few days earlier, with command issues he attributed to the steeper slope of the unfamiliar MLB mound (apparently the facility’s bullpen was not quite right and needed correction).
Now the Mets, and dozens of media members, wanted to witness the fabled “ghost fork,” labeled as such for the pitch’s uncanny ability to disappear from the strike zone.
Whatever was tumbling out of Senga’s hand during his first time facing hitters in a Mets uniform defied description. Some called the pitch a forkball. Others a splitter.
The only thing Pete Alonso knew for sure was that he couldn’t hit it, as the slugger took a monster swing at Senga’s last pitch of the session and slashed through nothing but air as the ball dived beneath his bat. Count Alonso as a believer.
“He got me on it,” he said. “It’s an interesting pitch for sure. We don’t really see that over here very often . . . It’s just a really unique shape. I don’t really have anything to base it off of. It’s like its own pitch.”
So what is the shape exactly?
“I don’t know,” Alonso said, smiling. “That’s why it’s the ghost pitch.”
Senga threw 29 pitches with varying degrees of success. His opening fastball to Jeff McNeil split the plate at 99 mph and the MLB batting champion smacked it into centerfield just as hard. Francisco Lindor stung another fastball for a line drive and Senga seemed to struggle a bit with his breaking pitches.
But the former Japanese ace gradually looked more comfortable and even kept pace with the new 15-second pitch timer, with two clocks on either side of the plate and another high above the backstop.
The highlight of the afternoon was that final forkball to Alonso, and when Senga was told of his new teammate’s reaction, there was no need for an interpreter.
“This is ghost,” Senga said in English, flashing a mischievous grin.
For those of us in attendance, it was like spotting Bigfoot or a UFO. We had been waiting for this moment ever since word reached the States about this so-called “ghost fork.” The Mets placed a $75 million bet over the next five years on Senga being the next big Japanese star, to the extent that they may have been willing to overlook some potential red flags regarding his physical.
The scene that unfolded Sunday at Clover Park is the reason why. Senga isn’t just another of the Mets’ many free-agent signings designed to polish the team’s World Series chances. He’s got a charisma that brings what Cohen wants for the rebranding of his franchise, and including Senga in the team’s Super Bowl commercial was part of that vision. The fact that Senga’s forkball has this “cool nickname” — Alonso’s phrasing — only pumps up that persona.
Senga didn’t come up with the label. He said over the past 10 years, as Japanese hitters kept saying the pitch was “disappearing,” someone thought of the ghost moniker and it stuck.
The concept is reminiscent of Daisuke Matsuzaka’s mythical “gyroball” — a pitch thrown with a spiraling, bullet-type spin that batters couldn’t read — but the old-school Showalter was reluctant Sunday to promote the whole “ghost” hysteria.
Not that the manager isn’t confident in Senga’s ability, or the special quality of his forkball. Showalter just prefers a more clinical analysis of his skill set rather than calling attention to a “ghost” pitch that opponents will take extra joy in smashing because of the colorful name.
“You won’t be hearing me call it that,” he said.
He’s just old school that way. Worried about providing bulletin-board material for other teams.
But Showalter’s not going to spoil our fun, and regardless of what Senga’s pitch is called, opposing clubs can’t hit what they can’t see. Senga is just beginning his MLB adjustment period, but the forkball’s supernatural action Sunday is reason for the Mets to believe in ghosts.
“It’s something I really hadn’t seen before,” said McNeil, baseball’s reigning batting champion. “It’s definitely a different shape of pitch. It had a lot of late movement on it. It was up in the zone and the thing just kind of dropped.”
High praise from a hitter like McNeil. The Mets had fun sharing their ghost stories, but for Senga, the urgency to make that forkball/splitter vanish on a more consistent basis was his takeaway from the afternoon.
“That one splitter was good,” Senga said through an interpreter, referring to the Alonso-swinging K. “But the other ones, they need to be worked on.”
Alonso is just glad he won’t be seeing much more of the ghost. Or in his case, not seeing it.
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
