New York Mets starting pitcher Kodai Senga’s maiden voyage in Major League Baseball officially includes All-Star honors.
The 30-year-old right-handed rookie, who came over to the United States this winter following 11 pro seasons in Japan, was named to the National League All-Star team over the weekend thanks to a first half in which he went 7-5 with a 3.31 ERA across 16 starts.
He joins slugger Pete Alonso as the only other Mets representative at the 2023 MLB All-Star Game, which will be held in Seattle on Tuesday night.
“We’re all very surprised,” Senga said through a translator (h/t SNY). “But I know it’s an honor to be selected… I wasn’t initially selected so I didn’t think anything of it.
In 89.2 innings pitched, he recorded 113 strikeouts, which is the fourth-most by a Mets pitcher through the first 16 major-league games of his career. Only Dwight Gooden (125), Matt Harvey (116), and Nolan Ryan (115) posted more punchouts than Senga during such a span.
Senga is the fifth rookie in franchise history to be named to an All-Star team, etching his name in elite company that features Tom Seaver (1967), Jerry Koosman (1968), Dwight Gooden (1984), and Pete Alonso (2019). He also becomes the eighth Japanese-born rookie selected to an All-Star Game, joining Hideo Nomo (1995), Ichiro Suzuki (2001), Hideki Matsui (2003), Hideki Okajima (2007), Kosuke Fukudome (2008), Yu Darvish (2012) and Masahiro Tanaka (2014).
He’s managed to do this while adjusting to life in the United States and tweaking his mechanics to adapt to a steeper mound, a larger baseball, and the pitch clock.
“We’re very proud of him,” his manager Buck Showalter said. “I’m not so sure if our guys could go over there and do what he’s done here as far as the adjustments. I have a lot of respect for that.”
