Check out Senga's new pitch -- 'The Miracle Ball'

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. -- Move over, Ghost Fork. The Miracle Ball is here.

Kodai Senga debuted a new pitch -- sort of -- in the Mets’ 3-3 Grapefruit League tie with the Cardinals on Friday. The right-hander threw a looping, 63.5 mph curveball near the outer edge of the strike zone, close enough for Yohel Pozo to lunge at it and foul the ball out of play.

It was the second-slowest pitch Senga has thrown in an American game, 0.3 mph firmer than a similar curveball he threw against the Rays as a rookie. Asked afterward about the pitch to Pozo, Senga responded through an interpreter: “The Miracle Ball.”

The what?

“I didn’t have any thoughts,” Senga said. “I just threw it lightly, and it went in the zone. So … great!”

Asked if he expects to make it a more regular part of his arsenal, Senga replied: “I think if it’s that slow, I’m going to regret it if it gets hit, so I don’t know.”

One of Senga's countrymen, Yu Darvish, is well-known for throwing eephus pitches from time to time, delivering those as slow as 51 mph. Although Senga’s arsenal includes seven distinct pitches -- including a curveball he throws about 2% of the time (and that typically rests in the low 70s) -- he’s mostly a three-pitch pitcher, relying on a four-seamer, a cutter and his signature Ghost Fork. This spring, he has also experimented with a sinker.

It’s probably safe to assume Senga won’t be throwing The Miracle Ball as frequently as his Ghost Fork, a two-strike weapon that opponents have hit at a .113 clip since he entered the Majors. But perhaps he will create -- or spawn -- more funky pitch names. When one of Senga’s teammates, Tylor Megill, developed a splitter of his own two years ago, he named it “The American Spork” in homage to Senga.

Asked if “The Miracle Ball” was a title of his own creation, Senga laughed and said rather cryptically: “Let’s not talk about that.”