Kodai Senga dealing with arm fatigue early in spring...

Updates on Mets pitchers health statuses in spring. Plus, it's all fun and games until someone gets hurt.

What’s up with the Mets? 🍎

• RHP Kodai Senga is dealing with arm fatigue and will rest for a few days, according to Mets manager Carlos Mendoza

• Mendoza told reporters that the coaching staff has been mindful of telling closer Edwin Díaz to “pull it back” in spring after missing a full season in 2023

• Carlos Beltrán, Edgardo Alfonzo and Darryl Strawberry will serve as guest instructors for the club during Spring Training

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Spring Training is all fun and games until the first injury… ✍️

Spring Training is a time of hope and excitement. The cold from a long, harsh winter slowly fades away, the sun comes out and the pops of baseball gloves become more prevalent. No matter what happened the season prior, optimism is abound and hope springs eternal for nearly each and every baseball team.

Until your first injury scare.

Yes, nothing can flip the script on Spring Training quite like that first report that one of your most important players is dealing with some kind of injury. For the Mets, that news came down on Wednesday in the form of Kodai Senga experiencing arm fatigue.

After trading Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander last summer, Senga became the club’s defacto ace and is monumentally important to the potential success of this team in 2024 – especially when you look at the state of the rest of the rotation. Outside of Senga, New York’s projected starters are José Quintana, Luis Severino, Sean Manaea and Adrian Houser. It’s a very boom-or-bust group that has been assembled by David Stearns with not a lot of reliability as none of those four starters made over 21 starts last season due to either performance, health or both.

The prospect of losing Senga for any potential amount of time throws off the equilibrium for the entire 2024 Mets season as he is one of the few players that they truly cannot afford to lose this season. Senga, 31, had a 2.98 ERA, 3.4 fWAR, was an All-Star and finished second in NL Rookie of the Year and seventh in NL Cy Young Award voting in his first major league season.

"After his side session yesterday, he came in and experienced some arm fatigue," Mets manager Carlos Mendoza told reporters on Wednesday. "So he stayed inside and we're taking a look at it."

It is worth noting that in his first big league season last year, Senga had to adjust to pitching every five days for the first time in his career – a rather large change from what he was used to over his first 11 seasons in the NPB.

Mendoza told reporters that Senga could potentially undergo an MRI just to be sure that everything is okay, something that immediately causes Mets fans to wince. Still, though, it appears that the organization may have dodged anything overly serious.

“Early reports, seems like we’re not too concerned,” Mendoza said on SNY’s “Hot Stove” show on Wednesday night.

MLB.com’s Anthony DiComo also reported that early indications were that it is “not that serious” in regards to Senga’s arm fatigue.

Even if the Mets did dodge a bullet, with this first injury scare of the year underway it once again reminds you of just how quickly the projection of an entire season can change… even in spring. The tenor of last year’s Mets season was set in March when the club lost José Quintana for four months and Edwin Díaz for the entire season due to injuries suffered in exhibition games.

As far as I’m concerned, even though it has barely just begun, Spring Training can’t end soon enough.

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Hot Stove 🔥

• LHP Hyun Jin Ryu signed an eight-year, $12.4 million contract with the KBO’s Hanwha Eagles

• While the Reds will not bring back Joey Votto as a player, the club is leaving it open to bring him back to the organization in his post-playing career (Cincinnati Enquirer)

• The Red Sox have shown interest in signing free agent 3B Gio Urshela (MassLive)