PHOENIX — The most important start of Sean Manaea’s season was the one he watched by Chris Sale.
On Tuesday, Manaea continued the late-summer resurgence sparked by Sale’s example, pitching into the seventh inning of the Mets’ 8-3 victory to open this critical series against the Diamondbacks.
Facing the majors’ highest-scoring offense — and one that’s been as sweltering of late as the 107-degree temperature Tuesday in Phoenix — Manaea barely broke a sweat through the first six innings. He retired Arizona in order four times, didn’t face a batter with a runner in scoring position and piled up 11 strikeouts on the night.
The Mets are 18-8 when Manaea starts this season. No team has won more games behind a starter on the mound.
“He’s been absolutely carving,” said Pete Alonso, who homered to open the scoring. “He’s been on fire for us.”
Manaea had been having a solid if unremarkable season when he watched Sale, perhaps the Cy Young front-runner in the National League, pitch well against the Mets on July 25. The first-base dugout at Citi Field offered the perfect perspective to watch the left-handed Sale’s delivery, and Manaea took notes.
“Sean works extremely hard and is extremely curious,” pitching coach Jeremy Hefner said earlier this month. “He’s been a successful major-league player, but how can we help him take this next step? Sometimes it’s watching a counterpart pitch, and you internalize some of those mechanics and it comes natural to you. … It just felt right to him, and he tried it and it felt right once he threw it, so we went after it.”
First, Manaea dropped his release point to look more like Sale. He has the athleticism to make that kind of change midseason, and it’s made his delivery quicker and more deceptive with a more pronounced motion across his body.
Second, he simplified his repertoire, ditching his cutter and his harder slider, limiting his changeup and leaning heavily on his sweeper and his two- and four-seam fastballs. The fastballs, in particular, have played up with the new delivery, and the sweeper has remained effective even while being used almost twice as frequently.
After his only poor start in the last month, a brief and relatively wild performance in Seattle, Manaea made one more adjustment. He reintroduced his changeup, now with a revised grip and a budding confidence. He threw 17 changeups over a three-start stretch ending in Seattle. He’s thrown 43 in the three starts since.
“The changeup is becoming a real weapon,” manager Carlos Mendoza said.
Manaea now emphasizes the grip between his thumb and middle finger when throwing the feel pitch; just as important, he’s figured out the cues he needs to throw it where he wants to.
“If I’m throwing it like my fastball, it’s just going to take off (arm side),” Manaea said. “I have to throw it glove side pretty hard, which is a foreign concept to me. Trying to throw it in to a righty is something way different than I’m used to. But once I figured that out, it’s just building off each outing.”
Since changing the grip late last month, Manaea had seen good metrics on it in his bullpen sessions. Now he’s seen those results play out on the field.
“I know a lot of teams are trying to stack right-handers against me,” he said. “Having that one pitch that looks like my fastball and really just dies, it makes my fastball that much better because they have to honor that pitch. It definitely makes a huge difference.”
With his pitch mix where he wants it to be, Manaea has worked aggressively to opposing hitters, showcasing a command of counts that often eluded him earlier in the season. On Tuesday, he walked no one. He reached a three-ball count just three times, and he threw only six of his 103 pitches while behind 2-0, 3-0 or 3-1.
“I’m just feeling good about everything,” Manaea said. “I have a lot of confidence in all my pitches, and I’m just attacking guys.”
“If you’re ahead of guys,” Hefner said, “you should naturally increase your strikeout rate a couple points.”
Manaea has increased his strikeout rate by more than just a couple of points. In his first 20 starts, he struck out 22.6 percent of opposing hitters. He’s raised that nearly 45 percent, up to 32.7 percent. That number’s serendipitous, in fact: It’s Sale’s strikeout rate on the season.
“You’ve got to give him credit,” Mendoza said. “He’s worked so hard throughout his career to put himself in this position, and it feels like he keeps getting better and better.”
(Photo: Mark J. Rebilas / USA Today)
