Sean Manaea thought he’d be pitching in a piggyback role, not a high-leverage relief role. Yet Sunday at Citi Field, he found himself coming out of the bullpen with two outs in a tie game in the seventh inning.
Apparently, plans changed.
Manaea made his season debut in the series finale against the Pittsburgh Pirates in the Mets‘ 4-3 extra-inning loss, throwing 1 1/3 innings. In the end, it wasn’t Manaea who was responsible for the loss. Another left-hander, Richard Lovelady, gave up two earned runs in the top of the 10th, and the Mets couldn’t rally to tie the game in extra innings like they did Saturday.
Lovelady was called on instead of left-hander Brooks Raley or right-handed closer Devin Williams, who were unavailable.
Down 4-2 in the bottom of the 10th with two on and none out, Juan Soto hit an RBI double off Jose Urquidy to score the automatic runner. Francisco Lindor was waved around third to go home, sliding into catcher Henry Davis after he received the ball from the cutoff man.
“Coming into the series, this was a team that we targeted. We were going to be aggressive against them,” said manager Carlos Mendoza. “You’ve got to give them credit. They executed, especially with having Lindor, and he had a hell of a jump off the bat. As soon as the ball was put in play by Soto, he took off.”
It was every bit as “aggressive” a send as it sounds by third base coach Tim Leiper. Had Lindor held at third, a fly ball would have scored him, tying the game again. But Lindor had no issue with the decision.
“I felt like as soon as the ball was hit, my mindset was that I was going to score,” Lindor said. “I think I would have scored, but I took a little bit of a bad route, but Leiper made the right call.”
This time, they couldn’t walk it off. Bo Bichette hit a groundball to the shortstop for the second out, and Jorge Polanco hit a deep fly to the warning track, where it was caught at the fence. Mets fans booed Bichette for his 1-for-14 slump.
“If anything, I thought it took too long,” Bichette said of the way fans expressed their displeasure. “I get it. I thought my at-bats were terrible too.”
Back to Manaea.
He’s embracing this role for the first few weeks of the season, even if it’s not the one he wants to play. Technically, a “piggyback start” isn’t a start at all. A pitcher coming in after a starter is a reliever, no matter what you want to call it. You don’t come into the game with a clean slate. You might come in with a clean inning, but Manaea wasn’t afforded that in his 2026 season debut.
When he said he was willing to do whatever was needed for the team, he probably didn’t expect himself to be following Huascar Brazobán, a middle reliever, and coming out of the game for right-hander Luke Weaver, a late-inning setup man. Manaea worked as a starter all spring, made it clear that he still views himself as a starter, and doesn’t want to have to throw extra pitches in the bullpen following a short outing.
He threw only 29 against the Pirates. Hardly the work of a starting pitcher, and hardly efficient, but he’s available for the series in St. Louis to be able to keep his pitch count up.
“It’s just a different schedule,” Manaea said. “I’ve been a reliever in the past, and I’ve just got to make adjustments. I know I can do a good job of that.”
While the Mets denied that the temporary long-relief role was due to a drop in velocity in spring training, the writing was sort of on the wall when he could barely get his hard stuff over 90 MPH. Manaea insisted all he would need is the adrenaline that a big league game brings.
It didn’t exactly return in his first outing of the season, but he did his job and kept the game tied at 2-2. The Mets still aren’t concerned, and neither is Manaea.
“He’s got the changeup and the sweeper, especially against lefties,” Mendoza said. “It was good to see swing-and-misses, even though it was 89, there’s some deception there. We’ve just got to continue to work with him and wait and see what happens here with him.”
There have been times in the past when Manaea’s velocity was down coming out of the gate. With the way his arm feels and his health coming into the season, he’s confident he’ll be able to put a few more ticks on his fastball and his sinker.
“I don’t have anything going on with my shoulder, elbow or anything like that,” Manaea said. “Yeah, I’ve pitched like this before in the past, and eventually it does come, but I think it’s more reps.”
Right-hander Nolan McLean tossed five innings, allowing two earned runs on four hits, walking two and striking out eight. The Mets took the series from Pittsburgh 2-1, and now head to St. Louis for their first road trip of the season.
