Have the New York Mets been reduced to shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic? It sure feels like it. In their latest move to stabilize their struggling pitching staff, they’ve notified disappointing starter Sean Manaea that he’ll be working from the bullpen for at least the next couple of days.
The move is definitely justified. Manaea has mostly been a disaster this year, giving up at least four runs in four of his last five starts while failing to go more than five innings in any of them. Starts like that have stressed the Mets bullpen to the breaking point, so Manaea will make the move to shore things up on the back end.
Whether any of this will matter is a different question entirely. The Mets continue to find new and exquisitely painful ways to lose, the latest coming on Saturday with a walk-off single that closed out a 3-2 defeat against the Texas Rangers.
According to Will Sammon and Tim Britton of The Athletic, Manaea is available for today’s series finale against the Rangers. If he doesn’t pitch, he’ll be next up after starter Clay Holmes in Tuesday’s opening game of a three-game set at Citi Field against the San Diego Padres.
It’s been a long fall from grace for Manaea, who signed a three-year, $75 million deal after helping to lead the Mets rotation into the NLCS last year with a 12-6 record and a 3.47 ERA. He’s been hurt for most of the year with oblique and elbow issues, and he has a 5.76 ERA in his ten starts this year.
The Mets can’t afford to give him any more chances. They’re up against it in the wild card race, and their current eight-game losing streak has let the San Francisco Giants and Cincinnati Reds back into the race. They went into Sunday's action a game behind the Giants in the loss column, so they're desperate to stop the bleeding.
Manaea’s demotion also speaks to the shattered state of the Mets rotation. He was supposed to join fellow starter Kodai Senga in leading the rotation, but Senga was also demoted and is now pitching at Triple A Syracuse until at least September 20th.
Meanwhile, yet another rookie starter will feel the heat as Nolan McClean tries to win against Texas and prevent a series sweep. The first step in salvaging the Mets season is stopping their latest losing streak, with the Giants and Reds waiting eagerly to pounce if New York continues to struggle.