Mets' Carlos Mendoza impressed with Kodai Senga's work ethic: 'He's a man on a mission'

Having missed almost the entirety of the Mets' 2024 season due to injuries, Kodai Senga is making sure he's doing everything he can to stay healthy and on the field for New York in 2025.

So far in spring training, the right-hander has put himself in great position to be a key contributor in the starting rotation, including another solid outing on Thursday night against the Washington Nationals where he went 3.2 innings and didn't allow a hit.

Manager Carlos Mendoza thought his starter's performance was a tale of two halves. He felt Senga "was a little off" in the first couple of innings before completely flipping the script in his last two innings.

"It was a good day of work for him," Mendoza said. "I thought the first couple of innings he was a little off, command was off and it looked like he didn’t have the best feel for his pitches. And then that third inning and the fourth inning it was the complete opposite – he was pretty nasty."

Senga threw just 49 pitches on the night, four less than his previous start, but struck out six and really found his groove deeper into the game, retiring the last nine batters he faced. He also touched 96 mph on his fastball and threw all of his pitches well.

"It was a good outing, I got a lot out of it," Senga said through an interpreter.

Thursday's outing marks Senga's final Grapefruit League action before the start of the regular season. All told, the 32-year-old threw nine innings in three starts and had a 2.00 ERA (1.22 WHIP) with nine strikeouts.

He's now on track to pitch against the Miami Marlins in the Mets' second series of the regular season, an accomplishment Senga doesn't take for granted following his injury-riddled season last year.

"He’s on a mission," Mendoza said. "This is a guy that wants to stay healthy because of what he went through last year. He knows he’s a big part of this team and I see a guy that is having fun. Last year he went down early and it was frustrating for him. Now you can see a smile on his face."

Still, because of his lack of innings thrown in 2024, Senga and the training staff will have to take every precaution this season for the Japanese-born pitcher not to have a similar fate this season. After all, he's much too important to the team who missed him badly last year.

But if New York can get an entire season from a fully healthy Senga, the one who finished second in NL Rookie of the Year voting in 2023 after going 12-7 with a 2.98 ERA and 202 strikeouts in 166.1 innings, the Mets' pitching staff will have one less question to answer.

"I’m on the same page with the coaches, the training staff, everybody on the team and they’re doing their best to keep me on the field and I’m doing what I can to stay on the field," Senga said. "So we’re all on the same page and I think we have a good step going forward."