SEATTLE - No current Mariners hitter has faced Sean Manaea more than Kyle Seager. In their fourth-inning matchup Thursday, Manaea deployed a wrinkle. Manaea began the at-bat with off-speed pitches at 83 and 84 mph. Statcast recorded both as changeups. Seager swung and missed at one and fouled the next. He then swung through a high curveball for strike three.
Manaea, the A’s left-hander, will mostly use his changeup against right-handed hitters. Fewer than one in 10 changeups he’d thrown this season prior to Thursday were against left-handed hitters like Seager. That equated to 43 total in 19 starts. Against the Mariners, he threw eight. Seven resulted in strikes and none were put in play. It reflected his overall difficulty.
“Manaea had a great mix going tonight,” catcher Sean Murphy said after Oakland’s 4-1 win over the Mariners. “I feel like I say that every time, but he was throwing all of his off-speed pitches for strikes to both righties and lefties and he was able to keep those guys off-balance.”
Manaea’s repertoire might not appear the most extensive. He throws primarily a fastball and changeup to right-handed hitters and his fastball and breaking ball to left-handers. Thursday, his attack was close to mathematical. He threw 54 fastballs on 106 pitches, his curveball (28) and changeup (24) use split nearly down the middle.
Seattle still could not solve him. Manaea allowed just three hits and recorded a career-high 13 strikeouts in seven one-run innings. He induced almost twice as many swing-and-misses (21) as he allowed balls in play (11). He notched 23 called strikes.
“He’s able to locate all his pitches in different spots, which helps him give guys different looks,” Murphy said. “Pitching out of tunnels and whatnot, reaching back for a heater when he needs it, that’s what makes him so successful.”
It helped Thursday that Manaea had some of his best velocity of the year. He touched 96 mph on a fastball in the first inning. His average fastball velocity of 92.8 mph was a tick lower than his 93 mph average in a complete game shutout in Seattle on June 2 but still more than a mph above his season average.
“The life on his fastball tonight, I thought early in the ballgame, the first couple of innings, is as hard as I’ve seen him throw maybe ever, and we’ve seen him a lot,” Seattle manager Scott Servais said.
It did not escape Manaea, either. The left-hander said he “took a peek” at the radar gun in the first “and I saw the 96, so I was pretty pumped about that.” It proved more than a momentary rush. Mariners swung at 25 of Manaea’s fastballs and missed 12. He finished seven strikeouts, six swinging, with the fastball.
“If they’re not really seeing the fastball, I guess it would be a little harder to see the other two pitches,” Manaea said. “So for me, that’s my establisher. If I can throw fastballs and generally throw them where I want, I feel like I’m going to have a little better results.”
Along with 12 swing-throughs on his fastball, Manaea notched six on his changeup. His breaking ball produced three but was no less effective. Manaea admitted that his “slider has always been kind of an iffy thing.” In 2020, opponents hit .296 and slugged .741 against it. This year has been a turnaround. Opponents were hitting .185 and slugging .352 against the pitch before Thursday.
Manaea threw 28 against the Mariners. They swung at 15 and did not put a single breaking ball into play. They missed three and fouled 12. Manaea finished four strikeouts with it. He threw it early in counts as well. Manaea threw seven first-pitch fastballs his first time through the order. He started four hitters with changeups and two with curveballs his second time through, three with each pitch in his third pass.
“His breaking ball is so much better than it was,” A’s manager Bob Melvin said. “He’s found a pretty good grip on it and consistency with it. And when you’re able to throw that inside to a righty, as well as your fastball, it’s going to look like the fastball inside. Down and in breaking ball and changeups away. So he’s got a nice little mix going.”
Manaea allowed just one extra-base hit, a solo home run by Tom Murphy to open the seventh. Murphy hit a 92.3 mph fastball. Manaea’s early velocity ebbed, but he reached 93 mph in that final inning and finished his outing in fitting fashion. His 106th pitch was a changeup to finish a strikeout of J.P. Crawford, a left-handed hitter.
“A lot of times (the difference) is velocity because he’s going to get a ton of swings and misses (on fastballs) when he has good velocity and his changeup is going to get just as many swings and misses because of his velocity and having to start the bat early,” Melvin said. “But there are games he goes out there without it and he throws more sinkers and he gets ground balls. He’s just figured out how to pitch according to what he has on a particular day.”
Matt Kawahara covers the A’s for The San Francisco Chronicle. Email: mkawahara@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @matthewkawahara
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A’s Sean Manaea uses lively fastball, ‘great mix’ for career-best 13 K’s - San Francisco Chronicle
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