Concerns Regarding Sean Manaea Performance

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Elevate your workouts with the cross training tread plus. Nolan McLean was so impressive in this game. And the reason I say that is he really didn't have much. His command was off, and you saw it immediately in walking the first two batters. And I think it was the first out of the first eight pitches he threw, seven of them missed the strike z one. His sweeper uh lacked command. It's also like the Pirates knew it was coming. Who knows? Maybe he was tipping pitches. Maybe he wasn't. Maybe it just wasn't sharp. But Nolan McClain wasn't good. And yet Nolan McLean at the end of the day pitched five innings and allowed two r uns. I used to say that a lot about Jake, uh, a part of my love with Jake. By the way, I apologize. Hoff is eating dinner right now, and he texted me that. And I told him, just text me when you're not around. I won't call for you. And I completely blew him off. So my apologies. But a little bit later on, uh, we'll get to the I'm the man right now, in case you forgot that. But what I always used to marvel about with Jake, and what I marvel about with any great pitcher, it's not just exclusive to him, is getting through your bad outings and having your bad outings actually be halfway decent. Well we witnessed in Nolan McLean's first start of the season, whether you want to blame it on the weather, whether you want to blame it on the WBC, whether you don't want to blame it on anything and just say, hey, it wasn't sharp. It happ ens. Like, you can't always be gre at. But what I loved about what happened in this game is he walks the first two gu ys. Very frustrating. First two guys, he walks struggling to command his sweeper. He gets this huge strike out of Brian Reynolds, gives up a blue pitch to Ryan O'Hearn to plate the Pirates first run, and then gets the next two outs. And the last out he got was he was fortunate because Spencer Horowitz hit one hard, but he happened to hit it right at Ju Soto. And as Nolan McLean is walking off the mound with a very high pitch co unt, okay, it's only one run. He walked the first two batters of the game. He gave up some hard contact. His sweeper was not the electric sweeper we've seen. Only one run. And Nolan McLean proceeds to pitch a very efficient one, two, three second. He makes the mistake to Brandon Lau. It seems like everyone did. Lau hits a bomb of a home run. No excuse. It happens. He gives up his second run, puts a few guys on base, and gets another big strike out of Spencer Horwitz. And then what I thought was really important is that fourth inning was a super efficient one, two, three in ning. And then in the fifth, he continues to look great. He gives up a bloop double to Brandon Lau, very unfortunate, blooper. I don't know what the exit VLO was. It wasn't high. And strikes out the next two guys. And so Nolan McLean, on a day in which he was not sharp, he was not good, ends up with a pitching line of five innings, four hits, two runs, eight strikeouts, and two walks. If that's the worst of Nolan McCla in, then we have every reason to be as excited as we've been this offseas on. So Nolan McClain's first start, I'm impressed, and I continue to be very bullish on what he'll be able to do. What you need to do, and I need to do it, but it's really for certain members of the Rico audience, is you can't think about what your Yankee fan friends are going to tell you. You can't look at Nolan McClain's outing and say, oh, yeah, he was tough, but man, that's gonna be compared to Cam Schlitter. Don't worry about it. I think Nolan McClain versus Cam Schlitter is gonna be a fun rivalry. One start in. I say it with a left. One start in , absolute edge for Nolan uh for Cam Schluttler. You tip your hat. But don't get bothered by that. It's like when Luke Weaver was in the game and I'm sitting next to Al Centron. He was my Met Buddy over the weekend. And he's like, ah man, if uh fluke weaver gives this up, I know what more Asher's gonna say. And I'm like, who car es? I mean, we can't live this entire season worrying about what former Yankees or what Nolan McClain's gonna do because of what someone else is gonna tell you. That was a good outing by McClain. Again, when you're not sharp and you could fight through f ive, he did a fine job. And I said this on the drive home. If you didn't hear it, I'll repeat this. Sometimes a pitcher tells you when they're done based on the emotion of the final out they get. So actually, that may not have been the drive home. Maybe that was uh Freddie's outing. I think it was. Yeah, I think it was opening day. Freddie showed emotion and it was he's done. He's coming out of the game. That's exactly what it was. When Nolan McClain struck out Ryan O'Hearn to get through that fifth in ning. He was enthused. He showed a lot of emotion. That was his sign. He's done. So no bet, no debate, no question. 84 pitches. Uh, do you push him if this is June or July? Maybe. We all have that dream trip we've been wishing we could go on, but too often life or usually price gets in the way. That's why Priceline is here to help you turn your dream trip into reality. With up to 60% off hotels and You can book everything you need for your next adventure. Don't just dream about that next trip. Book it with Priceline. Download the Priceline app or visit Priceline.com and book your next trip today. Go to your happy prize. Pricel ine. Waskar Brazaban again was outstanding. He retired every batter he faced. And then we get to Mania h. Because and and I should have known bet ter. Because when Sean Maniah is announced as hey, he's going to be a part of a tag team, or at least that's the phrasing I use, Mendy uses piggyback. He's gonna piggyback. Well, we know he's not piggybacking Freddie Peralta because Mendy told us. We know he's not piggybacking Nolan McClain because Mendy told us, and he's probably not piggybacking David Peterson with them both being lef ties. So he's there for Senga or Hol mes. But the first three games and the first four days are not being thrown by either guy. So what do you do? You have an eight-man bullpen. Are you telling me that one of those guys is never available? And when you think about the way this game gets set up, Tobias Myers threw three innings on opening day, so still likely not available. He should be good to go on Monday, but likely not available. And then you got the decision of who's Mendy comfortable throwing on back-to-backs. Not everyone's going to throw on back to backs. It certainly didn't surprise me that Brooks Rayleigh wasn't available in this game because he kept him not throwing back to backs last year. He's still less than a year removed from Tommy John surgery, or I guess a year removed from Tommy John's surgery, whatever the timing is now, you kind of figured he'd be careful with him. So who do you use? And that's where Sean Maniah goes from: yeah, our intention is to use him as the second guy as the second member of a tag te am. But what happens when you need a reliever? So as Minaiah was warming up, it's like, yeah, it makes sense. It does. And depending on how many pitches he threw, and it wasn't a lot in this game, could he be available for Wednesday afternoon to tag team with Cody Sanger? My thought would be yes. I don't think he'd be available for Monday or for Tuesda y, but I think he would be available for Wednes day. That'd be my gu ess. Now that I'm thinking about it, Senghis pitching Tuesday, so maybe he wouldn't in a tag team role. But you got to use your relievers. And when you think about who's not available and who is available, and Mendy did confirm after the game that Rayleigh wasn't, and that Devin wasn't. I figured Devin would be available, Devin Williams, but I guess he wasn't. And the reason Mendy used is that he warmed up on opening day. So he warmed up on Thursday, off day Friday, pitched on Saturday. In his mind, that would be like pitching three times in four days, which is a lot. It also leaves you naked for Monday's game against St. Lou is. So going to Mania made sense. But Sean Maniah did not look good. Let's just be honest. And I know that he ends up getting the four outs and he doesn't give up a run. So ultimately, Mania did his job, and he was able to get the huge out against Nick Gonzalez to get through the eighth inning and keep the game tied. But let's go through what Shaw Manaya did. First of all, the velocity is still not there. Uh City Field is showing. I guess I maybe I missed that on opening day. I'm not sure, but on the right field scoreboard, what I love, one of the great features that they have is in an at-bat, they'll show you the sequence. They'll show you the velocity, the pitch, and then the amount of pitches in that at b at, which I love, especially if an at-bat is getting long. He didn't break 9 0. He just did n't. He comes in, gets ahead of O'Neill Cruz, gives up hard contact base hit. Then he tries to pick him off twice and throws one wild past Brett Beatt y. Then he gets Brandon Lau out, but Brandon Lau hit the ball hard. It just happened to be a Marcus Simeon. So he gets the one out that he needed, but think about what he did. Hard contact base hit, throwing error, hard contact out. Stunningly gets back-to-back strikeouts to start the eighth inning and then walks two guys in a row before he gets Nick Gonzalez to ground out. It was not encouraging. He didn't fail. Obviously, ultimately, it's a results business, and he got the results, but I can't imagine any Met fan walks away from this performance by Shaw Maniah and has any kind of confidence. I don't know how you can. So what's his usage moving forward? Depending on how quickly they think he can recover, because that's obviously the big question. I mean, I can't imagine he's pitching on a back to back, so he wouldn't be available for Monday, like we talked about. Tuesday with Senga, which is where I really eyed him in the tag team. I I I doubt it. It's really Peralta, it's really Peralta. And then Peterson and McLean, the three guys that he probably wouldn't be used in a tandem ro le. So Shawmanai is a reliever. That's the bottom line. That's the way it feels. At least this turnaround. Because I think it's certainly on the table that a week from today Shawman I is starting the Sunday game against the Giants so that Kodai Senga doesn't pitch on what is deemed regular rest . I remain skeptical of