It’s been a long and tedious road to recovery for Kodai Senga.
The Mets' ace suffered a right shoulder capsule strain while ramping up for the regular season during spring training and the team decided it would be best for him to shut things down to recover.
Senga finally began working his way back and was progressing in the right direction but he shut things down again when he wasn’t comfortable with how his mechanics felt during a bullpen session.
After taking some time to work through the kinks, the righty appeared headed towards a potential rehab assignment, but he felt something in his tricep so the team sent him for an MRI which revealed nerve inflammation.
"It’s one of those where he’s itching to go out there and now he’s taking more time than we anticipated," said manager Carlos Mendoza. "I think we got a pretty frustrated player here that he’s not able to contribute to the team. We know how much he wants to be out there helping the team and right now he’s not capable of doing so."
Senga, who has been shut down for the last few days, told reporters through a translator on Monday that he’s yet to restart a throwing program and he’s frustrated with how everything has gone down.
“It’s obviously not ideal, a lot of regretful feelings,” he said. “I just want to get back out there. I’m here at the stadium and I see all the guys fighting. It really makes me want to have the urge to get back out there and pitch for the team.”
When exactly he’ll be able to get back out there still remains to be seen.
"It’s hard to put a timetable on here because he feels good, then we got a setback or the shot that he got and so it could be a lot quicker than what we anticipated, we just don’t know," Mendoza said. "Hopefully when he starts throwing again we’ll see some improvement and he can continue to the next phase and stuff like that."
The 31-year-old reiterated that it’s hard to see how he feels until he gets back on the mound, and when he does get back he won’t rush things in an effort to ensure that he is 100 percent before returning to the team.
“First I need to check how my body feels,” he said. “Then it’s really taking it just one step at a time because in order to get back at 100 percent you have to be at 100 percent at each benchmark.
“But what’s for sure is that I’m itching to come back, I really do want to come back and that’s what I’m striving for, but at the same time I can’t rush myself so that’s where I’m at right now.”