{"id":204552,"date":"2025-09-06T08:47:21","date_gmt":"2025-09-06T08:47:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/204552\/"},"modified":"2025-09-06T08:47:21","modified_gmt":"2025-09-06T08:47:21","slug":"mets-send-kodai-senga-to-minors-in-stunning-fall-for-ace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/204552\/","title":{"rendered":"Mets send Kodai Senga to minors in stunning fall for ace"},"content":{"rendered":"

CINCINNATI \u2014 Kodai Senga wants to be a helpful part of a playoff team in late September and throughout October, which led to his decision<\/a> \u2014 and it was his decision \u2014 to leave the big-league Mets in early September.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The struggling but talented righty accepted a demotion to Triple-A Syracuse on Friday so he can try to cure what has ailed him during a brutal stretch. He will need to spend at least 15 days at the lower level and will be eligible \u2014 but not guaranteed \u2014 to return with about a week left in the season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

By that point, the Mets and Senga are hoping he will be a different pitcher \u2014 more like the All-Star he was in 2023 or the pitcher who sure looked like an All-Star throughout this season\u2019s first half.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kodai Senga has struggled lately. Charles Wenzelberg \/ New York Post<\/p>\n

\u201cHe wants to do what\u2019s right for the team,\u201d president of baseball operations David Stearns said before beginning a series at Great American Ball Park. \u201cAnd he believes that he can be a part of a playoff run here. He very much wants to be a part of a playoff run here.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I think we all got to the point that the best possible chance for him to do that is take a step back, be able to work on what he needs to work on in a controlled environment and go from there.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kodai Senga walks off the mound during a start against the Braves on Aug. 14, 2025. Charles Wenzelberg\/New York Post<\/p>\n

Moving Senga to the bullpen \u201cdidn\u2019t feel like the right thing to do,\u201d Stearns said, with a pitcher so focused upon his routine. His recent results \u2014 a 6.56 ERA in his past eight games for a team trying to make a division charge and trying to hold off wild-card competition \u2014 reflected that he could not continue trying to figure out his struggles on the fly. So the Mets presented the notion of using a minor league option to Senga earlier this week, and he was \u201cvery open from the beginning,\u201d manager Carlos Mendoza said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Senga talked with his camp and accepted the Mets\u2019 plan despite a contractual ability to reject a stint in the minors. If there were concerns from his own agency or the MLBPA about the precedent of consenting to a minor league option, they did not matter in the end.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSo much respect for the player,\u201d Mendoza said of Senga, who will be replaced in a six-man rotation by Brandon Sproat<\/a>. \u201c[He was] obviously disappointed \u2014 he wants to be here; he wants to help us \u2014 but he understands where he\u2019s at physically and where we\u2019re at as a team and where he\u2019s at performance-wise.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Senga will not immediately jump into games with Syracuse. A pitcher so preoccupied with his mechanics will throw in several bullpen sessions before likely receiving a start next weekend. Mendoza said Senga will make a \u201ccouple starts\u201d before the club and player huddle to decide upon a next step.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The fall is significant for the Japanese star signed to a five-year, $75 million pact in December 2022 who was brilliant in his rookie season, in which he received Cy Young votes, and brilliant in this season\u2019s first half after missing most of last year due to injury.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kodai Senga pitches during the Mets-Marlins game on Aug. 31, 2025. Robert Sabo for NY Post<\/p>\n

In his first 13 starts this season, Senga owned a 1.47 ERA. He then strained his hamstring while covering first base, returned in July and has looked like a completely different pitcher. There have been innings when he has been dominant, and there have been innings when he has been crushed. There have been more of the latter.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of times, these lower-half, lower-body injuries can cause us to compensate in other ways,\u201d Stearns said of Senga, who continues to state he is healthy. \u201cMaybe that\u2019s one of the things that\u2019s going on here that\u2019s sapped him of velocity a little bit, made him a little less consistent than he\u2019s used to.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Senga has placed blame just about everywhere, from his mechanics to his pitch selection to the quality of his stuff.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He wants to know what precisely is wrong and is willing to fix it at a level to which he did not have to stoop.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHe wants to figure this out,\u201d Stearns said. \u201cI think getting him a little bit of time away from elite competition, away from the pressure of a playoff race, was the right thing to do.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CINCINNATI \u2014 Kodai Senga wants to be a helpful part of a playoff team in late September and…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":204553,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,27641,1266,405,403,1305,5226,5225,5228,5227,62,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-204552","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-kodai-senga","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-city","13":"tag-new-york-mets","14":"tag-newyork","15":"tag-newyorkcity","16":"tag-ny","17":"tag-nyc","18":"tag-sports","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-united-states-of-america","21":"tag-unitedstates","22":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","23":"tag-us","24":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115156487066917062","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204552\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}