JUPITER — The results weren’t pretty but they often aren’t pretty at this time of year. Sean Manaea still accomplished what he wanted to in his first Grapefruit League start of the year Saturday in the Mets’ 4-1 loss to the Miami Marlins at Roger Dean Chevrolet Stadium.
The left-hander gave up some hard contact early in the game, allowing three earned runs on five hits in the first inning. While Manaea wasn’t exactly happy with the runs, the pitches felt good out of his hand and he was able to use all of them, which is what he wanted coming into the day.
“Not exactly the results we wanted, but from an overall feel standpoint, I thought everything felt really good,” said Manaea, who signed a two-year $28 million contract in January. “I was attacking guys, just generally using everything I had and using all of the pitches I had.”
Manaea was somewhat erratic at the start, but his execution was much better in the second and third innings.
Luis Arraez, who has won the last two batting titles in the AL and NL, squared up the second pitch from Manaea. He lined it to left and advanced on a wild pitch.
Tim Anderson made weak contact and grounded out for the first out. But then Jazz Chisholm hit one hard — 106.2 off the bat — and so did Avisail Garcia. He gave up a third straight hit to Nick Gordon and a fourth to Jon Berti.
But then Manaea got Trey Mancini and Nick Fortes to pop up and end the inning. He retired the side in order in the second and was removed after giving up a double to Berti in the third, finishing the day with 56 pitches.
“I thought after the first inning, he settled in nicely,” said Mets manager Carlos Mendoza. “He left a couple pitches up in the first inning, one to Chisholm and one to Garcia and they got him, but overall it was good. The fact that he went out for the third inning and got his pitch count up to almost 60 was good. Overall, a positive step.”
With the Marlins being an NL East rival, Manaea didn’t want to give too much away. He didn’t want to sequence his pitches the way he might in a regular season game, especially with Miami using so many lineup regulars in the game. The goal of this start was to see how his pitches played, especially the changeup and the sweeper, but Manaea still had to balance that with getting outs.
“You face live hitters and you face your teammates, but it’s hard to recreate what an actual game feels like,” Manaea said. “Especially with the first start, I just want to make sure everything feels good out of my hand, which today, it was good. Even the bad ones, I got good feedback for what I should be doing going forward and in the next few starts.
“Leading up [to the regular season], it’s definitely going to be working on execution and game planning and all that stuff.”
Manaea will be an important arm for the Mets this season, which is what he liked about the opportunity to sign with the Mets. A swingman in San Francisco last season, the Mets think he’s more than just a back-end arm. With Kodai Senga set to miss at least the first month of the season, the pressure is on for the rotation to get them through.
The team might be overvaluing its pitching depth, but if Manaea can pitch the way David Stearns and the Mets brass think he can, then the team will look smart. Manaea turned his season around last year with the addition of a sweeper and continued his work at Driveline over the winter.
Manaea has a plan for how to best use all of his pitches. This start provided him a way to see how they play in certain spots.
“There’s always room for improvement and a little bit of tweaking,” he said. “It was really the first time I’ve used all these pitches in a game — in an actual game. So there was some good stuff out there.”
