Sean Manaea, two-out hitting lifts Mets to 2-1 lead in NLDS

New York is one win away from the NLCS after a 7-2 win vs the Phillies. Plus, how Sean Manaea's transformation into an ace carried into the postseason.

Rich MacLeod

Oct 09, 2024

What’s Up with the Mets? 🚩

The Mets won Game 3 of the NLDS in convincing fashion, defeating the Phillies by a 7-2 score (box)
LHP Sean Manaea was brilliant last night, pitching seven-plus innings while allowing just one run on three hits and two walks with six strikeouts
1B Pete Alonso went 1-for-2 with a home run (3), two walks and two runs scored
DH Jesse Winker hit his first home run of the postseason, a solo shot into the second deck
RF Starling Marte delivered a key two-out, two-run single in the 6th inning to help break the game open
2B José Iglesias had one of his best games of the playoffs, going 2-for-4 while driving in a pair of runs
RHP Phil Maton struggled in relief again, allowing a run on a hit and a walk in 0.2 innings pitched
New York scored six of their seven runs with two outs in their Game 3 victory
With a win on tonight, the Mets could clinch for the first time at Citi Field in it’s 15-year history, and it would be the first time since 2006 that the club clinched in their home stadium
The Mets will hosting a block party for Game 4, which will get underway at 1:30 PM EDT. Gates will then open at 2:30 PM EDT and each fan in attendance will receive a rally towel

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Moment of the Game ⭐

While the solo home runs from Pete Alonso and Jesse Winker set the tone early on and were absolutely electric for this Citi Field crowd, the Mets were not going to win this game with just two runs.

With a 2-0 lead in the 6th inning, the Mets were on the verge of wasting a bases loaded, nobody out situation. In that moment you could feel it in your gut: this was the game. The Mets were either going to find a way to break-through and give themselves some breathing room, or the momentum was going to shift over to Philadelphia.

Ahead in the count 1-0, Starling Marte delivered a monumentally clutch hit to drive in two runs and extend the lead to 4-0. To me, it is the biggest individual moment of this game.

Honorable mention: Sean Manaea getting the line drive double play to end the top of the 6th and the two-run single from José Iglesias in the 7th to make it 6-0.

GAME FOUR

Match-up: Mets (2-1) vs. Phillies (1-2)

Where: Citi Field — Flushing, NY

Starters: LHP José Quintana (0-0, 0.00 ERA) vs. LHP Ranger Suárez

When: 5:08 PM EDT

Where to Watch: FS1

Did You Know?! 🤔

The Mets have now scored 13 runs in the 8th and 9th innings of this postseason – the only team to score more in their first postseason games are the 1936 Yankees (Sarah Langs)

Sean Manaea’s transformation into an ace has the Mets one step away… ✍️

When you looked at this Mets rotation coming into this season, you wondered how this team was going to get any outs. Once Kodai Senga went down for a significant amount of time in Spring Training, you saw an already compromised rotation that was now without an ace.

I’m not sure there’s a single person who expected that just six months later in the heat of a postseason series that Sean Manaea would have completed his transformation into that ace. Not Mets fans, not David Stearns, and maybe not even Manaea himself.

When you take a look back, the start of Manaea’s career in Queens started in a rather unassuming way. Through his first 14 starts with the club, the veteran left-hander had a 4.16 ERA and 3.74 FIP over 71.1 innings pitched. At that stage of the year, I’d say that Manaea’s performance was largely what you expected from a guy that you signed to a one-year “prove it” contract. He was largely competitive, with a handful of blow-up starts mixed in, but struggled to give the club innings on a consistent basis averaging just five innings per start at that point in the season.

After making an adjustment where he changed his arm slot and dropped his release point, however, that’s when Manaea’s transformation truly begun. In his final 18 starts of the season Manaea pitched to a 3.02 ERA with 111 strikeouts to 34 walks over 110.1 innings pitched, and pitched into the 7th inning a whopping 12 times.

It was clear that a switch had been flipped, with chatters from the fan base and the media focusing on finding a contract extension for the left-hander. But what he did last night against the Phillies in Game 3 of the NLDS was a whole new ballgame.

After starting the game giving up some hard contact in the first inning or so, Manaea really began to settle into this pivotal match-up against the reigning NL East champion Philadelphia Phillies. And boy, was this game ever important to both sides. In the history of the MLB postseason, teams that win the third game in the division series when it’s tied 1-1 have won the series over 80 percent of the time.

And in every single way imaginable Sean Manaea delivered the most ace-like performance that we’ve not only ever seen from him, but that we’ve seen from any Mets pitcher since the 2015-16 postseasons considering what was at stake here.

All night long, Manaea largely cruised through a Phillies lineup that exploded for seven runs in the previous game of this series that they won on a walk-off hit, only really having one crucial, nail-biting moment. That came in the top of the 6th inning when the first two batters reached base safely, leaving Manaea to pitch to Bryce Harper with two on and nobody out with just a skinny 2-0 lead.

Right when it looked as if Manaea was going to replicate what happened to Luis Severino in the previous game – where he similarly dominated through five innings before imploding and blowing the lead in the 6th – the lefty threw some of his most wicked sweepers to get Harper to chase out of the zone for the strikeout. Then, facing Nick Castellanos, Manaea got just a touch of serendipty with a soft line drive that turned into an inning-ending double play.

What was almost an even bigger moment was in the inning that followed. After the Mets clawed for an additional two runs to begin to break the game open at 4-0 (courtesy of a clutch two-out hit from Starling Marte), Carlos Mendoza opted to keep his newfound ace in the ballgame in search for an extra inning that he didn’t have to use his tired and struggling bullpen.

That move paid off in spades as Manaea not only retired the side in order, but managed to do so on a stress-free seven pitches. He was so economical, in fact, that his performance convinced Mendoza to trot him out there for the start of the 8th inning, as well. And while he did not retire the one batter he faced in that inning due to a little bad luck (and honestly, I still think he could’ve gotten them a couple more outs had they asked him to) it concluded in an absolutely brilliant performance by this man.

As he walked off the mound in the 8th, Manaea was greeted to a roaring chorus of nearly 45,000 Mets fans showing their appreciation. For Manaea this game was incredibly special, not just because he delivered his club a commanding 2-1 series lead in the NLDS but because he also experienced the loss of his aunt prior to the game.

“That game was for her,” Manaea said.

All in all, it was an absolutely monumental performance from Manaea in every single way, and has now set the Mets up where they are just one win away from eliminated the Phillies and moving on to the NLCS for the first time since 2015.

Not only would a victory tonight clinch the series but, to me, it is some long overdue payback against a Phillies franchise that tormented us in the 2007 and 2008 seasons. And I don’t know about you but after preventing Philadelphia from clinching the division on the Citi Field diamond just a few weeks ago, how sweet would it be clinch a postseason series victory against them on the same field?

It would be the first Mets clinching moment at Citi Field in the 15-year history of the ballpark, by the way.

The Mets are now set up to make it happen tonight – and I think they’ve got a tremendous shot to get it done – and it’s in large part due to the heroic efforts of their ace… Sean Manaea.

The Championship Chase 🏆

The Padres used a six-run second inning to help stave off a comeback attempt by the Dodgers to win Game 3 of the NLDS, 6-5