Mets' Kodai Senga releases the 'ghost,' and results are scary good
Mets starting pitcher Kodai Senga delivers a pitch to the Miami Marlins' Joey Wendle during the second inning Sunday in Miami. Credit: AP / Michael Laughlin
MIAMI — Believe.
The ultra-hyped “ghost fork,” the signature pitch of Kodai Senga, is real. And after vanishing for most of spring training because of his bout of finger tendinitis, the supernatural splitter showed up Sunday at loanDepot park. Senga used it to finish every one of his eight strikeouts during the Mets’ 5-1 victory over the Marlins.
Senga, who allowed three hits and one run in 5 1⁄3 innings, played up the spooky pitch for his major-league debut, having a ghost design with an oversized fork stitched in yellow on the webbing of his blue glove. While it took him an uncomfortably long period of time to get settled in the first inning — Senga technically is a rookie, after all — the former Japanese ace became a buzzsaw once he did.
Luis Arraez, the Marlins’ leadoff hitter and last season’s American League batting champ, slapped Senga’s first forkball for a single to centerfield. The next one skidded past catcher Tomas Nido for a wild pitch that put Arraez at second. What followed was a nightmare scenario: Jorge Soler’s run-scoring double and a pair of walks that loaded the bases. Time for a visit from pitching coach Jeremy Hefner.
“That was the first time that we had a stressful mound visit,” Hefner said. “But it was simple. He hadn’t been getting ahead, and it was very clear to me that he wasn’t landing any of his off-speed pitches, so they were dead set on the heater.”
Still, Hefner was encouraged that he wasn’t seeing good swings from a Marlins lineup that was undisciplined at the plate all series. And after that pep talk, those swings would get much worse, thanks to Senga summoning the ghost.
He whiffed Yuli Gurriel on five pitches, finishing with a forkball that made his bat disappear as it flew out of his hand and helicoptered down the third-base line. Senga fanned Jesus Sanchez with another forkball and got Jon Berti on a liner to right, and the Marlins never challenged him again.
“There were some tough swings on that pitch,” Marlins manager Skip Schumaker said. “Guys just couldn’t pick it up. It was pretty late movement.”
Senga appeared to sense it, too. After laboring through a 36-pitch first inning, he needed only 10 for the second and seven for the third. That began a stretch in which Senga whiffed four of seven hitters, going 1-2-3 each time, and saving the ghost for last. A handful of the Marlins wound up on one knee after flailing away at the forkball, which maxed out at 87.2 mph and averaged 84.6.
“Every pitch I felt like was a little bit off in the beginning,” Senga said through an interpreter. “So once I was able to relax and calm down, I think the fork came with it.”
Senga also deployed a four-seam fastball (99.0 mph max/96.8 average), a sweeper-slider and cutter, but the ghost was the headliner, as advertised. He threw 26 of those forkballs overall, getting 14 swings and nine misses. Once Senga was locked in, the ghost’s behavior was pure sorcery.
“You even saw with Nido a little bit, it’s a hard pitch to block,” Hefner said. “Sometimes it cuts, sometimes it fades and sometimes it goes straight down. It spins funny.”
The Marlins didn’t think it was so hilarious. Senga’s ghost repeatedly corkscrewed them into the dirt, and they had no clue where it was going, particularly when it was set up by his other weapons.
“What impressed me about him was just tough to pattern — a lot of pitches, a lot of stuff going in different ways,” Marlins shortstop Joey Wendle said. “He could throw the splitter for chase. He could throw it for strikes.”
The Mets were relieved just to have Senga actually throwing the ghost at all. Once he got to Port St. Lucie, he spun off a few in his first intrasquad game at the end of February, then basically put it on the shelf in an attempt to calm the tendinitis flare-up at the base of his right index finger. Changing to a larger, heavier MLB baseball likely was a contributing factor, so Senga used it sparingly during his three Grapefruit League starts and didn’t really unleash it full time until last Monday’s final tuneup against minor-leaguers in a low-key camp game.
As dress rehearsals go, facing Double-A hitters in a mostly empty stadium maybe wasn’t too far off from what he faced Sunday. The Marlins are a terrible offensive team and the announced attendance was only 18,322. But to see him stumble right from the jump had to raise a few front-office jitters regarding his five-year, $75 million contract. Especially when they barely got to see him throw the ghost fork in a competitive environment in spring training.
Senga’s impressive rebound Sunday, however, was very revealing on a number of levels: from his crossover talent to his resilient character to that fabled ghost fork. He put that all on display and left the Marlins seeing ghosts — but not coming anywhere close to touching them.
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
