Kodai Senga took the mound for the Mets on Sunday, hoping to end the homestand positively, let alone the incredibly joyous way that it began, with the sweep of the Phillies. However, the Mets were left with another early exit from Senga. As a result, the NL East race is effectively over, the Reds gained a game on the Mets and some serious questions about Senga’s place in the starting rotation stand.
On July 21, Kodai Senga was making his second start back from the Injured List. It was a welcome sight for a team whose tailspin directly correlated with his ill-fated injury a month earlier. Senga had started 31 straight games in which he allowed three earned runs or fewer. Simply put, with a career ERA of 2.49 in his first 44 starts, he was putting together one of the best beginnings to a Met pitcher’s career in the team’s history. And of his 44 career major league starts up to that point, he had only allowed four earned runs or more four times (four earned runs three times and five earned runs once).
But it has only taken eight starts to double those exact stats. Since that start against the Angels, he has allowed four earned runs in three of them and allowed five earned runs in Sunday’s poor performance against the Marlins.
While Senga is best known for his ghost fork, a deep dive into his pitch arsenal in 2025, as opposed to 2023, shows that it is the fastball that has made the difference thus far.
Gregory Fisher-Imagn Images
Senga’s Fastball Run Value in 2023 was 17 in 2023, which put him in the 98th percentile. This year, that has plummeted to negative six, which is in the 16th percentile. Compare that to the difference between his year-to-year changes in Breaking Run Value (12th percentile to 15th) and Offspeed Run Value, which, for Senga, basically is a singular grade on his forkball (93rd percentile to 97th).
To the naked eye, it seems like Senga’s walk percentage has gone up, and it has, just not as much as you might think. In 2023, Senga walked 11.1% of batters (15th percentile), and this year, 11.4% (9th percentile).
The real change has been how far down his strikeout rate has gone. Senga was in the 87th percentile in 2023 (29.1% K-rate) and in the 50th percentile this season (22.6%).
Senga’s average velocity on his four-seam fastball is down from 95.7 mph in 2023 to 94.7 mph in 2025, so not too much change there. His pitch usage is very similar, with the only difference being that about six percent of his fastballs are now sinkers, after previously just being four-seamers. The stark difference is in the run values by pitch type.
Of all his pitches, none changed more than his cutter. His cutter, which went from 90.8 mph to 89.6 mph, went from 20 run value to one. The pitch, which moved nine inches on average in 2023 is down to only 7.8 inches in 2023. And with Senga using his cutter primarily as a weapon against left-handers, you can see that the proof is in the pudding.
The OPS of righties against Senga is actually down in 2025 from 2023, going from .680 to .662. But lefties have comparitively mashed against him, going from .570 to .754.
Senga told media members that his lower half still isn’t fully engaging since his return, and perhaps that is what is leaving his fastballs, particularly his cutters, a bit short. It remains to be seen if the calf injury isn’t fully strengthened yet, coming off the injury, and if that is adding to his lack of confidence in that area, but either way, Mets brass is concerned.
“We’ve been trying to fix him for quite a bit now,” Carlos Mendoza said postgame, “he’s having a hard time competing in the strike zone.”
“There are some parts of my body that aren’t moving the way I want it to,” Senga told reporters through an interpreter, “At the same time, I’m out there and I’m competing. It’s a fine line and it’s tough for me, because I’m out there but I’m not able to perform.”
Well, with the calendar officially turned to September, Brandon Sproat breathing down the necks of whoever isn’t performing in the team’s current six-man rotation and a potential playoff rotation that is completely up in the air at the moment, the time for performance for Senga better come sooner rather than later.
