ST. LOUIS -- By the end of last summer, Kodai Senga can admit now, he was a bit of a mess. For a year and a half, Senga had battled shoulder, calf and hamstring injuries, all of which wreaked havoc on his mechanics. On the mound, he lacked confidence. His every thought was of what his arm should be doing, his midsection, his legs. Focusing on those details meant ignoring everything else.
Tuesday at Busch Stadium, a different pitcher emerged from the visiting dugout. An unshackled pitcher. No longer concerned with mechanical minutiae, Senga simply took the mound and threw.
It wasn’t perfect, as Senga allowed two runs and eight hard-hit balls in a 3-0 loss to the Cardinals. Still, the outing engendered continued optimism that the All-Star version of Senga -- once feared lost forever -- might be legitimately back.
“It was a great start to the year,” Senga said through interpreter Hiro Fujiwara. “It makes me excited for this year, being out there and I could start to deduce, ‘What is this hitter thinking? What are they looking for? What’s something that they’re not looking for?’ Being out there and able to do that, it’s a good feeling. I’m excited.”
Added Senga: “It really felt like I’m a starting pitcher again.”
The All-Star-caliber stuff was clearly there for Senga, who topped out at 99.2 mph -- one of the five fastest pitches he’s thrown in his Major League career. He generated 17 swings and misses in all, throwing seven different pitches. Among them was of course his signature ghost fork, which catcher Luis Torrens called “his baby.” Four of Senga’s whiffs came on that offering.
“That’s his pitch,” Torrens said. “It’s always there.”
The Cardinals did hit Senga hard at times, smashing three consecutive knocks in the third inning to score a pair. Two of those came off the bat at speeds of at least 103 mph, including a 107.4 mph Iván Herrera double that plated both runs -- all three the result of pitches that leaked over the heart of the plate. Senga also walked three batters, but he recorded plenty of early outs to stay pitch-efficient -- something that’s been an issue for him in the past, even when he’s been at his best.
Overall, Senga allowed just the two runs in six innings, with four hits, three walks and nine strikeouts -- his most in a game since 2024. He threw 92 pitches.
“He was really good today,” manager Carlos Mendoza said. “From the very first pitch, we saw the velo. For him to be able to maintain the velocity throughout the outing … that’s exciting.”
The outing was Senga’s first in a Major League game since the Mets optioned him -- with his approval -- to Triple-A last September amidst a spate of poor results. Following his All-Star debut season in 2023, Senga fell victim to shoulder and calf injuries that limited him to a single start in 2024. During his comeback attempt, he wrestled with his mechanics -- something that became thematic for Senga, who continued to battle mechanical issues during another injury-plagued 2025 campaign.
This spring, however, Senga reported to camp healthy and throwing in the upper 90s again. He submitted the most dominant Grapefruit League campaign of any Mets pitcher, nailing down a rotation spot for a team in need of a frontline starter.
“This guy wants to be great,” Mets pitching coach Justin Willard said before the game. “I think you saw it Year 1 when he was here, and then a couple injuries derailed him a bit. But he wants to be great. He wants to be the best pitcher in baseball. And he’s going to do things he needs to do to be that.”
With Freddy Peralta and Nolan McLean now headlining their rotation, the Mets don’t need Senga to be the best pitcher in baseball. They just need him to stay on the field. As long as Senga remains healthy, Mendoza noted, he should be able to replicate these results. And if Senga is able to replicate these results, the Mets figure to win his starts more often than not.
“When he’s like that, he’s special,” Torrens said. “We need him, too. Good start. We lost, but first one of the year for him? It was really good.”