The New York Mets were bitten with the injury bug early in spring training, with starter Kodai Senga being shut down with shoulder soreness. He ultimately received a PRP injection to help with the pain and with Opening Day around the corner, it appears Senga is trending in the right direction.
Speaking Thursday in Florida, manager Carlos Mendoza said Senga is starting to ramp up his rehab process.
Via SNY:
“He's feeling great. He wants to pick up a baseball and start throwing again, and that's why we're taking our time here and making sure we do it right.”
Carlos Mendoza talks about Kodai Senga's ramp-up after being shut down with his shoulder injury:
"He's feeling great. He wants to pick up a baseball and start throwing again, and that's why we're taking our time here and making sure we do it right." pic.twitter.com/qhIEAKH59j
— SNY (@SNYtv) March 21, 2024
The Mets do not want to rush Senga back into action, which makes sense. Especially with Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer no longer around, the Japanese righty is even more important to their rotation in 2024.
Kodai Senga injury update
Senga was slated to be the Mets' Opening Day starter and their ace this year. In late February, he was diagnosed with the injury and shut down for three weeks. While Senga beginning a throwing program is definitely a positive, it'll be awhile until we actually see him on the hill again. He'll need to face live hitters and possibly even get some outings down in Florida before joining the big league club.
As it stands, the Mets' rotation consists of Jose Quintana, Tylor Megill, Adrian Houser, and Sean Manaea. Senga will headline that group when he is healthy. The 31-year-old enjoyed a very impressive debut campaign in the Majors last year, going 12-7 with a 2.98 ERA, striking out 202 hitters in 166.1 innings of work.
That was a small increase in workload for the former Nippon Professional Baseball star, but not by much. Thankfully, this injury doesn't look to be serious. The Mets will need all the help they can get on both sides of the ball after cleaning house at the trade deadline in 23′.
Last Friday, Mets president David Stearns had this to say about Senga's recovery process and the timeline that was initially given, per SNY:
“We have a lot of objective information to use in this process,” Stearns said. “Timeframes are often our best understanding, best suggestion and many ways the best guess at times of diagnosis. I’m always going to try and provide timeframes to you guys because I know you want them and it’s helpful. Sometimes it’s going to be shorter, sometimes it’s going to be longer. This time it’s longer than we anticipated on the front end.”
New York knows just how crucial it is that Kodai Senga is healthy for the entire season. Even though he's keen to pick up a baseball right now, the medical staff will be extremely careful.
The Mets will be looking to compete for a postseason berth in the always competitive NL East after a very disappointing 23′ campaign where they missed the playoffs by a mile. Although the roster has a different look now, there's still a ton of talent in New York. While a World Series run may not be in the cards, playing October baseball is certainly possible. They will need Kodai Senga to be at his absolute best every fifth day to spearhead the rotation.
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