Those in the baseball world were tuned in to watch Kodai Senga make his major league debut with the New York Mets over the weekend. And, he didn’t disappoint.
After an illustrious career in Japan, Senga exercised his international free agent rights and signed a lucrative deal with the Mets over the offseason. The 30-year-old Senga made his long-awaited MLB debut on Sunday against the Miami Marlins and fooled hitters with his “ghost-fork” pitch.
Senga became the first person to start a career as a lowly developmental player in Japan and then pitch in MLB, according to The Athletic’s Will Sammon.
While Senga allowed just one run over 5.1 innings, it took the Japanese phenom some time to get settled. Senga paced around the dugout as the Mets batted around in the top half of the first inning. After four batters, Senga found himself in a heap of trouble, which led to a mound visit from Mets pitching coach Jeremy Hefner and his interpreter.
After loading the bases with nobody out in the home half of the first, Senga retired 15 of the next 17 batters he faced, striking out eight in the process. His first career strikeout came against Marlins’ first baseman Yuli Gurriel, who he made look foolish. Gurriel, who has a 6.7% swinging strike rate for his entire major league career, lost his bat in the process.
That wasn’t the only Marlins players that Senga made look foolish. Pitching Ninja on Twitter captured more of that dominance from what looked to be a pretty unhittable pitch.
The MLB world reacted to Senga’s impressive debut on Twitter: