Sean Manaea, who missed a majority of the first half, has come off the IL strong, and he continued to deal yesterday afternoon against the Angels. Manaea had his longest outing of 2025 so far, going five innings, allowing just one run and two hits with two walks and six strikeouts.
Overall, it was a solid outing from one of the Mets’ top starters, even though it wasn’t super long. The only hiccups he had were a bases-loaded jam he escaped in the second inning and a Mike Trout solo home run in the third.
Manaea came out of the gate fast, striking out the side in order in the first inning, with his fastball/sweeper combo that has been lethal since coming off the IL. Throwing those two pitches almost exclusively today (four-seamer 70%, sweeper 26%, slider and changeup combined 5%), the two pitches combined generated 11 of Manaea’s 12 whiffs.
“Fastball was good, slider was good,” Manaea said postgame of his outing. “Effective enough.”
Something to keep an eye on, though, is that Manaea’s velocity was down an average of two miles per hour on both the fastball and sweeper. His velocity diminished as the outing went on, and Manaea admitted after the game he didn’t feel he his best, and that he’s still working on getting his stamina up.
“I definitely didn’t feel great out there, but good enough to get the job done,” Manaea said. “I think stamina-wise, just not full there yet. It’s just building up from there.”
Carlos Mendoza said it was good to see Manaea be able to work without being on his A-game during the outing.
“I feel like he was grinding out there,” Mendoza said. “He battled and it was good to see, on a day where maybe he wasn’t feeling it for a lot of different reasons.”
After the Trout homer, Manaea didn’t allow another baserunner, retiring seven straight to cap off his day. He handed it off to Huascar Brazobán and the bullpen to finish it off. Manaea earned his first win after a Mets offensive explosion in the bottom half of the third inning, where Francisco Lindor tallied an RBI single and Pete Alonso hit a three-run home run.
