Sean Manaea wants to turn around the Mets' playoff chances

MILWAUKEE – Sean Manaea will tell himself it's only start 33 of his season. The left-hander will remember that he was generally solid to excellent in his first 32 games and that this will be “just another game,” Manaea said Tuesday.

Of course he knows it's not just another game. But he is betting that the way of thinking works.

“It’s the playoffs. There’s obviously a lot of energy and excitement,” Manaea said before the Mets scored first in their wild-card series opener with an 8-4 win over the Brewers at American Family Field. “I'm trying to keep up with this excitement and not fight it. But at the end of the day, all I could do was somehow prepare myself for moments like this.

“It’s pitching.”

Manaea has been great at pitching this year and will get better as the season progresses, but he has struggled on big pitches in the past.

In his first eight major league seasons, Manaea threw a pitch in the postseason three times, and none went well. He was knocked down twice with the A's, first in 2019 and then 2020, before allowing five runs in 1 ¹/₃ innings with the Padres in 2022.

For Game 2, Manaea will look to lower a postseason ERA to 15.26. H

He'll have to do that against the Brewers, who halted his run of excellence by beating him in a five-run, 3²/₃ innings dud on Friday.

A proper recompense would include another champagne party and sending his club to Philadelphia.

“It’s just another game,” Manaea said, a phrase he used twice. “You just have to treat it like that and not try to make it too much bigger than it is.”

If there's more hope than there has been in the past, it's because Manaea is a different pitcher than he has in the past.

Last offseason, the Mets signed Manaea to a contract that guaranteed him just $14.5 million this year. They made a bargain because he was coming off a poor season with the Giants, where he left the squad in May and didn't play again until September.

Manaea pitched well in his first 20 starts with the Mets, posting a 3.74 ERA. But starting with one outing on July 30, he dropped his arm slot, became a near-sidearmer and watched the uncertain swings pile up.

In Manaea's final 12 starts of the season, he logged more innings than anyone else and pitched to a 3.09 ERA, making him the ace the Mets needed.

“If I can have confidence out there and make shots on anything and everything I throw, I feel like good things can happen,” Manaea said. “Mechanical changes like that helped me.”

These mechanical changes have helped the 32-year-old put together arguably the best season of his career. He will almost certainly decline his player option for 2025 and enter free agency a far more attractive pitcher than he was this time last year.

He enjoyed his time in Queens, but didn't want to look at the free market. He also wants to show in October that he is a changed pitcher.

“Really proud of the work I was able to do,” Manaea said of his season. “We've stayed healthy all season and made it this far, so I'm just really looking forward to pitching (Wednesday).

“Hopefully it’s not my last (with the Mets).”