It was a frustrating start to the season for Sean Manaea.
The left-hander struggled to find his velocity during spring training and he ended up landing in more of a mop-up role out of the Mets’ bullpen early on.
Instead of putting his head down, Manaea keep on grinding.
He put in a ton of work with pitching coach Justin Willard, and is finally starting to see all of that paying off.
The veteran has found more success with an uptick in velocity over his past few outings, leading to him receiving an opportunity in the Mets’ starting rotation.
“You have to give him credit,” Carlos Mendoza said. “When it was hard for him he was basically the last guy out of the bullpen and he never put his head down — you saw him doing long toss and all of the drills we put him through.
“When you see the velo now starting to come up, we know the strike-showing ability, but now the cutter and the sweeper throwing strikes — that’s the guy that we saw in 2024.”
And that’s the guy that the Mets saw on Monday night, as well.
Manaea was absolutely spectacular serving as the bulk reliever for the first time this season, piecing together his best and longest outing to this point.
He lost a left-on-left matchup with 20-year-old Colt Emerson, allowing a solo homer to right in the bottom of the third, but otherwise cruised his way through Seattle’s lineup.
The southpaw gave up just one other baserunner on a walk and struck out four over 5.0 innings.
Manaea’s velocity increased again, and he’s now held his opponent to one run in three straight appearances.
“I’ve just been taking things day-by-day,” he said. “Just building each day and coming in with a plan, and slowly but surely I’ve just been feeling really good on the mound.”
It remains to be seen if it’ll be as a straight starter or bulk reliever again, but Manaea is in line to take another turn in the rotation the next time around.
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