Next month, when pitchers and catchers report, the Mets will see Kodai Senga’s hallmark pitch, the ghost fork. According to those who have seen it, it lives up to the hype.
As the United States prepared to face Japan in the knockout stage at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, Nick Martinez issued a warning to his peers.
“Don’t swing at the fork,” Martinez, now a star relief pitcher for the San Diego Padres, told them. Martinez was referring to Kodai Senga of Japan and his forkball, which is nicknamed the ghost fork.
Martinez had spent four seasons in Nippon Professional Baseball in Japan, as both a teammate and an opponent of Senga’s. He knew how haunting the ghost fork could be, yet his fellow Americans could not lay off the pitch.
“Our guys just kept swinging at it, swinging at it, swinging at it,” Martinez said. “I was like: ‘Guys, I told you not to swing at it. What’s going on?’ They’re like: ‘Yeah, but it looks right there and then it’s gone. We don’t see it.’”
Senga struck out five over two scoreless innings in a 7-6, 10-inning win for Japan. A few days later, he added a blank frame against the U.S. team in the gold medal game, which Japan won. The two notable performances had people talking about his baffling pitch, which seems to disappear to batters just as it gets to home plate. And unlike Daisuke Matsuzaka’s gyroball, which proved to be a tall tale, or perhaps just a slider, Senga’s forkball, according to some of the people who have seen it, is a devastating weapon that delivers on the hype.
After more than a decade with the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks, with whom he earned five Japan Series titles (he was not on the postseason roster for a sixth title, which the team won in 2014), Senga will chase a World Series ring with the Mets. A coveted international free agent, Senga recorded a 2.59 E.R.A. over 1,089 innings in his home country and was a part of the Mets owner Steven A. Cohen’s off-season spending spree. Senga, 29, signed a five-year, $75 million deal in December and held his introductory news conference just before the holidays.
“Hi, I am Kodai Senga of the New York Mets,” the right-hander said in English after donning his new team’s jersey for the first time. “I’m very happy and excited to be in the Big Apple and join such a great team.”
The excitement for fans, teammates and even opponents is palpable as everyone waits to see how Senga will perform in the United States. They are excited, too, to see his ghost fork — that is, if they can track it.
