Sean Manaea overcomes postseason demons to give Mets a win ahead of NLCS

On the night of what was surely his greatest personal triumph in the major leagues, when he slammed the door on the Philadelphia Phillies and led the Mets to within one win of the NLDS, Sean Manaea reflected on his unlikely rise from what he described as “rock bottom” two years ago.

It was October 2022, and at age 30, he was considered an underachiever, a first-round draft pick who had never lived up to the potential others saw in him.

Or as he put it Tuesday night, even after throwing a seven-inning gem in the Mets' 7-2 win at raucous Citi Field: “I've had a lot of ups in my career, but a lot more downs.”

A disappointing season as a starter with the San Diego Padres that year pushed him to the bullpen for the postseason, and in Game 4 of the NLCS against the same Philadelphia club, he was given a chance at some sort of redemption by hitting with a…in Game came to a 4-3 lead in the fourth inning.

Except he immediately had an explosive inning, allowing five runs that pretty much cost the Padres the game and, with another loss, the NLCS.

Manaea was desperate.

“That night I emailed Driveline,” the left-hander recalls. “I said, ‘Something has to change. I have to fix this.'”

So he went to the data-driven performance training center in the Seattle area to reinvent himself, working with weighted balls to increase his speed while learning to throw a sweeper. Some of the work paid off in 2023 with the San Francisco Giants, especially late in the season when he came out of the bullpen and got off to good starts in September.

The Mets thought he was turning a corner and signed him to a short-term deal, and of course they couldn't have been more right, especially after Manaea decided to lower his arm angle about halfway through the season to simulate it Chris SaleDelivery. The move turned him into a monster in the second half of the season.

Still, he had dwindled since the moment in Milwaukee in a crucial late-season game two weeks ago and then had good pitching there in the Wild Card Series, but not the dominance the Mets expected.

And so there were rumors among the baseball people that maybe he just wasn't built to handle pressure. Besides the one in the NLCS two years ago, when he was a young pitcher for the Oakland A's, he had had other bad games in the postseason.

All of this added up to a postseason ERA of 10.66 through Tuesday.

“He's always had his ups and downs,” a major league scout told me Tuesday night, “but in the postseason he had some of his worst performances of his career.” The book on him was that he was too hyped up to do it found it difficult to control his emotions and therefore found it difficult to execute pitches.

“But he looks like a different guy now. He was now the guy many of us always thought he could be. In a huge game. That says a lot.”

Yes, Manaea met the moment, pitching seven shutout innings as the Mets built a 6-0 lead before an eighth-inning infield hit off a reliever added to his tally Phil Maton in the game. And more than his six strikeouts, the 19 swings and misses he racked up were an indication of how much he dominated the Phillies.

That is, after the first inning, when the first three Phillies he faced hit rockets at 106 miles per hour or more right off the bat, but all was well with the fielders.

Again, it looked like Manaea got in his own way and didn't make any pitches in the postseason, but this time he rallied after the first inning and started making pitches.

Mendoza said he felt something different about Manaea.

“He was confident before, but his demeanor was different today,” Mendoza said. “There was something special about it.”

This was particularly evident in the sixth inning. After he left Kyle Schwarber And Trea Turner to start the framework, here came Bryce Harper got to the heart of what turned out to be the turning point of the game.

Mendoza later said he was close to going to the bullpen at that point.

Manaea struck out Harper in three throws and managed to swing and miss against a series of perfectly executed throws: an 85 mph changeup that moved down and in, a 79 mph sweeper toward the outside corner and finally a 77 mph sweeper from the outside corner that Harper couldn't have reached with a paddle.

Slow, slower and slowest.

“For me, that was the moment where you could really see his attitude,” the scout said. “That's a moment when a pitcher who's struggling with a good fastball feels like he's throwing harder. Instead, he mellowed and made pitches. Just a great piece of pitching.”

Mendoza said he thought it gave Manaea momentum again and continued to deceive him Nick Castellanos a bit too, leading him to hit an off-balance liner that led to an inning-ending double play when Schwarber was doubled from second.

And from there, Manaea pitched another scoreless seventh to get the Mets deep in the game, which was crucial given their shaky bullpen of late.

It was soon over, and there was a standing ovation in the eighth period that made Manaea emotional, partly because, he said, he had learned earlier in the day that his Aunt Mabel had died.

And partly because it was the culmination of all the work Manaea had put in after that haunting night in October 2022 to reinvent himself as a pitcher and overcome his label as an underachiever.

“It’s an incredible feeling to go through all of this,” Manaea said. “I’m super proud of myself.”

Of course, he's not the only reason the Mets are continuing their magic carpet ride. Pete Alonso has rediscovered his power stroke, Jesse Winker continues to be an invaluable piece of the puzzle, and Jose Iglesias continues to lead the world in goals scored twice.

It all made for a bit of a Citi Field party on Tuesday night. The fans were thrilled. But perhaps no one appreciated it more than Sean Manaea.