The New York Mets have been looking for an opportunity to get Sean Manaea back on the mound, and last night was it.
New York Mets pitcher Sean Manaea is trying to return from being exiled to the bullpen, and manager Carlos Mendoza has said he’s been looking for a game where he can get Manaea in and throw around 50 pitches so he can keep the left-hander stretched out.
The finally happened last night, although the circumstances weren’t the best. When the Mets were down 5-2 early and it was obvious that starter David Peterson didn’t have it, Manaea finally got the extended call.
He ended up throwing 3-2/3 innings and giving up a single run, and according to Henry Schulman of MLB.com, the best news was that Manaea ended up throwing 74 pitches. His outing was a bit of an adventure, though, as he allowed a home run to Rafael Devers in the sixth, then had to work his way out of a bases-loaded jam with two out in the seventh.
Still, Mendoza saw this as a good thing, which isn’t surprising because he doesn’t have a lot of those happening with the Mets right now.
“It was a positive step there,” Mendoza said. “I think he was aggressive. His fastball had life, he got some swings and misses, and for him to finish the game like that and save the bullpen is huge.”
Manaea wants to get back into the rotation, but Mendoza wouldn’t commit to that.
“It was important for him to stretch out in case we make the decision when we have to,” the manager said. “But again, there were a lot of positives from him today, not only from the workload standpoint but just in the way he threw the ball.”
The pitcher was on board with that, too, as Manaea sounded determined to say all the right things.
“We’ve got five extremely talented starters, and my role right now is to help this team in the capacity that I’m doing,” he said.
There’s been talk of a six-man rotation, but last night starter David Peterson got hit hard by the Giants, so there may be a rotation opportunity for Manaea if Peterson continues to struggle. GM David Stearn took a significant gamble by keeping the back end of the rotation intact, and so far it’s been Clay Holmes up and Peterson down, with Manaea waiting in the wings.
The Mets don’t have long to sort all of this out, though. This is a team that needed to get off to a fast start to erase the stench of last year’s second-half collapse, but the Mets are scuffling, and now they have a three-game losing streak that needs to be broken.