Sean Manaea’s season debut was successful and discouraging.
He did not allow a run, did his job in relief, and kept the Mets in the game.
He also displayed the same reduced velocity that he had pitched through in the spring — and during the spring, he had expressed confidence that pitching in games that matter would provide the extra zip his pitches needed.
Manaea was good enough for the game and probably not good enough to inspire lots of hope that he can be an effective starter in Sunday’s 4-3, 10-inning loss to the Pirates at Citi Field.
The lefty, who is in the bullpen for now amid early-season off-days and the Mets rotation at full health, entered in the middle of the seventh inning of a tie game. He allowed a single to Oneil Cruz but induced a frame-ending groundout from Brandon Lowe.
Manaea returned for the eighth, struck out a pair of Pirates and pitched around a pair of two-out walks, a groundout from Nick Gonzales rendering Manaea’s day a mitigated success.
Even pitching in relief — when the shorter workload leads to harder pitches from many pitchers — Manaea saw his four-seamer, which averaged 91.7 mph last year, register an average of 88.7 mph. His changeup and sweeper were also down more than 2 mph.
Carlos Mendoza was heartened to see the reduced stuff still elicit four whiffs, but he acknowledged they are watching the radar guns.
“There’s some deception there,” the Mets manager said. “We just got to continue to work with him and wait and see what happens with the velo.”
Manaea continues to say publicly that the velocity will come.
Why?
“The fact that I’m healthy,” said Manaea, whose oblique and elbow cost him the first 3 ¹/₂ months of last season, “and I don’t have anything going on with my shoulder or elbow or anything like that.
“I’ve pitched like this before in the past, and eventually it does come. I think I just need more reps.”
The Mets are monitoring Manaea, who is due $50 million through next season and yet is behind Freddy Peralta, Nolan McLean, Kodai Senga, David Peterson and Clay Holmes in the pecking order.
For his part, the 34-year-old has not publicly complained about at least temporarily losing his spot and adjusting to a different role. He only learned Saturday that he would be pitching Sunday.
“I’ve been a reliever in the past and just got to make adjustments,” Manaea said. “I do a good job of that.”
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
