New York Mets pitcher Kodai Senga answers questions during a news interview prior to the first baseball game of a doubleheader against the Los Angeles Dodgers, May 28, 2024, in New York.
11:30 JST, July 11, 2024
NEW YORK (AP) — Mets pitcher Kodai Senga threw 2 2/3 scoreless, two-hit innings Tuesday night in his second minor league rehab start.
The right-handed pitcher from New York, who has been sidelined all season with a shoulder injury, threw 30 of his 52 pitches for strikes with Triple-A Syracuse against the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders, an affiliate of the New York Yankees. He struck out three, walked two and threw two wild pitches.
Senga made his first rehab start last Wednesday with High-A Brooklyn, throwing 25 of 35 pitches for strikes in 2 2/3 hitless innings. He retired six of the nine batters he faced without walking a batter against Hudson Valley.
New York’s projected No. 1 starter this season, Senga has been out since the start of spring training with a right shoulder capsule injury. There’s no set timetable for his return, but if all goes well, he could join the Mets’ rotation in late July or early August.
“We’re going to evaluate after each rehab start, see how he feels, see where we are from a rotation perspective,” president of baseball operations David Stearns said. “If everything goes according to plan, I would say sometime after the All-Star break. But I can’t tell you exactly.”
Stearns said that once Senga returns, the team’s “default stance” will be a six-man rotation, although “we may deviate from that occasionally.”
Senga went 12-7 with a 2.98 ERA in 29 starts as a rookie last year in his first season with the Mets after arriving from Japan. He struck out 202 batters in 166 1/3 innings, finishing second for NL Rookie of the Year and seventh in Cy Young Award voting.
