Mets’ Kodai Senga pitched through spine inflammation before it began affecting his performance

Mets’ Kodai Senga pitched through spine inflammation before it began affecting his performance

Kodai Senga revealed to reporters on Wednesday afternoon that the lumbar spine inflammation forcing him to the sidelines wasn’t a recent development.

The righty dealt with the issue at times during spring training and early in the regular season, but he was able to pitch through it so he didn’t come forward.

The injury became too much to manage and effected Senga’s performance, though, so he finally met with trainers following a third consecutive rough outing on Sunday.

The Mets placed him on the 15-day IL just two days later.

“There were games I felt good and I was able to pitch well,” he said through an interpreter. “But these past couple of games the results show it was unfortunately something I was not able to manage -- I was determined I could get through it, but it got to a point I wasn’t able to.”

The numbers certainly showed that over his latest outings.

After beginning the year with a pair of decent showings against the Cardinals and Giants, Senga failed to compete three full innings of work in two of the next three.

Even in the game he did reach that mark, he was pulled in the fourth.

His ERA now sits at an ugly 9.00 with a 1.95 WHIP after allowing 16 runs (15 earned) on 17 hits and five homers while issuing eight free passes and striking out just seven batters over that span.

“It’s just not good enough,” Carlos Mendoza said following Sunday’s loss.

The 33-year-old doesn’t know exactly how this will effect him the rest of the season, but his main focus right now is just getting healthy and back out on the mound.

When exactly that will be still remains to be seen.

Senga won't throw for the next seven-to-10 days after being given an epidural on Tuesday, then he will sit down with the doctors and trainers to see where things go from there.

“The expectation is that the injection will calm down the nerve irritation,” he said. “The medicine kicks in at different points for different people, so I’m not exactly sure when it’s going to start hitting, but we’ll see how the body responds.”