Sean Manaea twirls six stellar innings in encouraging Mets debut
The Mets’ starting pitching struggled a bit during their season-opening series sweep at the hands of the Milwaukee Brewers, but Monday night, Sean Manaea gave them a much-needed shot in the arm.
Making his Mets debut, the left-hander stepped up tremendously as he twirled six terrific shutout innings in an extra-inning loss to the Detroit Tigers.
Manaea struck out six across four perfect innings before allowing Tigers young star outfielder Riley Greene to reach leading off the top of the fifth on a walk, but he continued cruising after that and retired the next three batters in order with another punch out.
Detroit was able to push a runner into scoring position for the first time in the sixth, as Carson Kelly walked and advanced on a ground out, but he was gunned down at the plate on a perfect throw from Brandon Nimmo as he was trying to score on an Andy Ibanez single.
Manaea’s 5.2 no-hit innings leading up to the Ibanez single was the longest by a pitcher in their Mets debut.
“It was a really good outing for him,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said. “His fastball was really good. The way he attacked hitters, he was getting a lot of swings-and-misses on his fastball. The cutter was good, the changeup was good, and he threw some good sliders.”
After cutting his hair following a rough first spring outing with the Mets, the 32-year-old closed out the spring on a high note, and he was able to carry that over to his first start of the regular season.
While the offense wasn’t able to come through for him, that doesn’t take away from Manaea’s terrific performance, as he became just the 12th pitcher in MLB history to throw at least six innings while allowing just one hit and striking out at least eight in his team debut.
“It was pretty good,” the lefty said. “I’m just throwing my stuff for strikes right now and getting ahead of guys. I know that my stuff plays well and I have confidence in all of my pitches so now I’m just realizing it.”
With ace right-hander Kodai Senga remaining sidelined due to a shoulder injury, and the offense struggling to get going, the Mets could use more performances like this from the southpaw moving forward.
