Kodai Senga Excited To Join Mets

Kodai Senga is officially a New York Met.

The Nippon Professional Baseball star is now stateside and introduced himself to New York and Mets fans on Monday morning.

Senga began with a message he prepared in English.

“Hi, I’m Kodai Senga of the New York Mets. I’m very excited and happy to be in the Big Apple and join such a great team. Let’s go Mets.”

Senga, 29, has spent his entire career in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball as a member of the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks and now turns stateside as a member of the Mets.

Senga has played 10 years for the Hawks. In his time, the right-hander has an 87-44 record, 2.59 ERA, 22 holds, one save, and 1,252 strikeouts. He was a three-time NPB All-Star and five-time Japan Series champion.

Senga is the latest Japanese player to come to MLB. He said he received advice from Yu Darvish about the league and it gave him more excitement to come over.

Another added bit of excitement for Senga is the ability to pitch with Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer. Two pitchers Senga watched before his starts in Japan and can’t wait to compete with.

Senga isn’t just ready to pitch with the big boys he’s ready to face them. The player he wants to face the most?

“The Philadelphia Phillies,” Senga said.

Safe to say he’s already great at being a Met.

Senga is coming off the best year of his career. He went 11-6 in 22 games pitched with a 1.94 ERA as a starter and 156 K’s in 144 innings pitched.

The six-foot-zero-inch pitcher throws a fastball averaging 95-96 that tops out at 100 mph, a forkball, a cutter, and a slider. His forkball has been nicknamed the “ghost fork(ball) in Japan.”

How did he develop it?

“Practice,” he said.

Senga has already met the manager too. Although he was a little detected by Buck Showalter’s stern resting face.

“At first I thought he had a really intimidating face, but after that and getting to talk to him and he was cracking jokes, I realized how comfortable I can be around someone like that.”

Senga will round out the Mets rotation that will feature Verlander, Scherzer, Jose Quintana, and Carlos Carrasco.

“He’s just a really complete pitcher,” Billy Eppler said. “Also his resiliency. He scratched and clawed his way to really high levels.”

This was just Senga’s introduction. He’s now ready to live up to the hype and his contract.

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