Sean Manaea eager to re-join Mets after final rehab start: ‘I just felt healthy’

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SYRACUSE, N.Y. — With a smile, Sean Manaea said one of the main things he learned while lingering on the injured list all season — and experiencing multiple setbacks along the way — is patience.Sean Manaea

After his final rehab outing on Tuesday, he doesn’t have to wait much longer.

Manaea, sidelined in spring training due to a strained right oblique muscle and then slowed down more recently because of left elbow discomfort, said he is ready to make his season debut in Kansas City on Sunday.

“Very much so,” Manaea said. “I’m just ready to be back and help this team win.”

Manaea is expected to enter the game after starter Clay Holmes and work as a piggyback reliever on Sunday. The Mets don’t want Holmes, who pitched Tuesday in Baltimore to face a long layoff with the All-Star break upcoming after the series against the Royals.

In his final tuneup, Manaea threw 3 2/3 innings (73 pitches). He gave up three runs (courtesy of Rodolfo Castro’s three-run home run on a hanging sweeper), four hits and one walk. He recorded four strikeouts. Manaea’s four-seam fastball averaged 90.6 mph (last year it averaged 92.2 mph).

“It was good — left the one slider hanging but other than that, I thought I competed pretty well, the pitches were good for the most part,” Manaea said. “More importantly, I just felt healthy. Overall, it was a big success.”

Manaea’s outing marked his sixth rehab start. Previously, he reached as high as 62 pitches and 5 1/3 innings while appearing for Syracuse on June 19. But from there, he felt abnormal soreness. A subsequent MRI revealed a loose body, which is typically a small piece of the bone that breaks off the elbow. After a cortisone injection and a short shutdown period, Manaea returned to the mound on July 2, throwing 61 pitches over three innings.

Manaea said he feels like he is past the elbow issue (his other setback was due to the oblique issue and it happened in late March).

“After today, I felt good all the way through,” Manaea said. “Still gotta take care of it, but definitely not worried about it.”

For the last handful of weeks, the Mets weathered a cruel storm of pitching injuries. While waiting on Manaea, they dealt with the absences of Kodai Senga (hamstring), Tylor Megill (elbow), Griffin Canning (Achilles) and Paul Blackburn (shoulder). The rash of injuries most recently left their rotation with David Peterson, Clay Holmes and Frankie Montas — who is just three starts into his Mets tenure after a lat injury in spring training cost him significant time — which forced the Mets to rely on spot starters and the bullpen to absorb other innings. At last, however, New York is getting healthier.

With Manaea in line for a return this weekend along with Senga, who threw a rehab outing Sunday and should start on Friday, the rotation’s outlook for the second half suddenly appears sunnier.

“There’s no reason we can’t do great things,” Manaea said. “We already are. Just having me and Kodai it’s just going to be great as well.”

Despite Manaea’s absence, the Mets’ starters produced a 3.36 ERA, fourth-best in MLB heading into Tuesday’s games. But over the last three and a half weeks (since June 13), that ERA figure ballooned to 5.61. A healthy Manaea adds to the rotation’s chances of recapturing success.

Before posting career bests in ERA (3.47) and innings (181 2/3) last season, Manaea, 33, resembled a league-average pitcher with precisely a 100 ERA+ (generally league average) from 2016 to 2023. But he emerged in the second half of 2024 as a front-line starter.

Last summer, Manaea dropped his arm slot to mimic Atlanta Braves ace Chris Sale, a fellow lefty. He lowered his walk rate from 10 percent in the first half to 6.8 percent in the second half while increasing his strikeout rate from 24 percent to 26 percent. He finished 11th in the balloting for the National League Cy Young Award.

After opting out of his original deal with the Mets, Manaea re-signed last winter for three years, $75 million. The deal, which contains deferrals, represents the largest contract for a pitcher under Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns, who started his tenure in late 2023.

(Top photo of Sean Manaea at a game last October in New York: Luke Hales / Getty Images)

This news was originally published on this post .

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