Mets have played their cards right with ace Kodai Senga

Ask Kodai Senga to reflect back on his greatest concern about coming to the Mets, all these months later, and it’s a feeling everyone can relate to. Sort of like the first day at a new school. Only in a different country. With a language barrier to navigate.

“I wasn’t nervous, but just worried about my English skills, and how am I going to communicate with anybody?” Senga said Wednesday through his interpreter. “Like if someone says, ‘What’s up?’ how am I going to respond to them? Just every little response I didn’t know, so I was worried about that aspect.”

Based on Senga’s remarkable rookie season, however, he’s gone from being that anxious new student to essentially teaching the class — and along the way graduating to ace of the Mets’ rotation. He’ll make his 25th start of the season Friday night against the Mariners — only Carlos Carrasco and Tylor Megill have as many as 20 — with a 3.17 ERA that ranks seventh in the majors. His 10.83 K/9 is fifth among all starters, and his 0.79 HR/9 is tied for third with Atlanta’s Charlie Morton, polishing a debut performance that has him in the running for NL Rookie of the Year.

Credit to Senga for living up to the hype. Maybe even surpassing it. He arrived in the States with his fabulously named “ghost fork” and a freshly-inked five-year, $75 million contract — a slightly reduced price tag due to an injury history that Senga himself copped to at his first spring training news conference.

Senga was never specific about those health issues, or what showed up during the team’s physical (reports in Japan said elbow/shoulder related). But the Mets believed they could draft a blueprint that would help Senga mirror the success he’d achieved during his 11 years as an elite pitcher for the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks.

And a big reason for that was GM Billy Eppler, who had previous front-office experience working on Masahiro Tanaka’s transition to the Yankees and later, as Angels GM, doing the same for two-way phenom Shohei Ohtani. The details of those plans vary from player to player, but the basic operating principle is the same.

“You want to be able to try to figure out what you can control, and then what you can’t,” Eppler said before Wednesday night’s game against the Rangers. “And really embracing that kind of reality. I can’t control the baseball. We can control the day he pitches, and how much, and what he does.

“But we have to be transparent with the player about that on the front end. Here’s the program, and now here’s the pen — tweak it, tell us why. So you have to enter this partnership, where you’re doing everything in your power to acclimate and make people feel comfortable. That’s my prevailing thought.”

The proof is in the pitching. Heading into Friday’s start, Senga (10-7) had thrown a total of 136 1/3 innings, the most of any rookie, ahead of the Astros’ Hunter Brown (133.0). The Mets got him to this point nearly glitch-free, aside from some finger tendinitis in spring training — likely related to the bigger, heavier MLB baseballs — by crafting a program that monitored his workload, regularly adding extra rest between starts.

That tweak was self-evident. In Japan, starters pitch once a week rather than every fifth day, as they do in the States, so it’s only natural that MLB teams try to ease them into the adjustment. And there is evidence that Senga has benefited from the extra days here. He’s only made three starts on regular MLB rest, or four days, pitching to a 4.61 ERA. The Mets have stretched it to five days for 15 of his starts, resulting in a 3.26 ERA. On six or more days, Senga has a 2.43 ERA in those six starts.

“Being on regular rest isn’t something that I fear,” Senga said. “I feel very confident doing it. Obviously staying healthy was a big part and I think I was able to check off all those boxes.”

Senga pitched a career-high 180.1 innings in 2019, but hasn’t been above 148 since, so there’s little doubt that will factor into how much longer the Mets continue to start him for the remainder of this season. But the workload is only one piece of the puzzle. As Eppler alluded to, the Mets’ commitment to Senga’s performance involves everything but the moment he goes into his delivery. And that’s critical to making sure Senga is at his best on the days he takes the mound.

“I think the biggest part is being able to live stress-free,” Senga said. “I think the team has put me in a spot so I can focus on baseball. I’m able to take out the other stress factors in my life. On top of that, it’s a great atmosphere in the clubhouse. My teammates are great. They welcome me, they joke around with me — it’s just great camaraderie inside there. So I think that all plays a part in this.”

And Senga could not look more comfortable in Flushing, thanks to lessons learned by the Mets.

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.