Before the start of Thursday’s game against the Washington Nationals, Mets manager Carlos Mendoza gave updates on some of his injured players.
After pitching 2.2 innings in his first rehab start with High-A Brooklyn, allowing no hits and striking out six, Kodai Senga will “hopefully” throw a bullpen session in the next three days.
“Good. All the reports are positive,” Mendoza said about Senga’s outing. “He did well, obviously the velocity was there, used all of his pitches, so yeah everything is trending in the right direction.”
Senga, who reached 98 mph on his fastball, threw 35 pitches in his start. The plan for his next appearance, which Mendoza confirmed will be with Triple-A Syracuse, is to have the right-hander get up to 60 pitches or so. The goal for Senga is to be at 75-80 pitches when he eventually returns to the majors.
Mendoza also mentioned that he and pitching coach Jeremy Hefner have to look at the schedules to solidify a plan for their pitcher. With All-Star breaks coming up throughout the minor leagues, the possibility of Senga throwing in simulated games to keep him on track is on the table.
Meanwhile, Harrison Bader remained out of the lineup on Thursday, although the skipper said his center fielder is doing better. After no baseball activity on Wednesday, Bader went outside and tested stuff out before Thursday’s game.
“Hopefully he’s a player for us today,” Mendoza said.
J.D. Martinez is also out of the lineup on Thursday, but Mendoza said it’s simply a day off for the 36-year-old due to the “quick turnaround” of an 11:05 a.m. start time.
After a sore ankle kept Martinez out of Tuesday’s game, the designated hitter was back in there on Wednesday and is fine, per Mendoza.
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