I've been taking a ton of flack this season for my love of Sean Manaea. Let it be after allowing 9 ER in his first two games or telling people to stick with him after missing three weeks on the DL, plenty were upset that I had him as Top 35 through it all. As he came back, I've been preaching that he would need a few starts to rev the engine, expecting him to be a Top 25 pitcher again starting June 1st. Well, I was one start too late as he dominated the Yankees with a 7.0 IP, 0 ER, 4 Hits, 1 BBs, 8 Ks outing. Keep in mind, Manaea walked the first batter of the game on four pitches as well. Once he hit his groove, there was not stopping him, collecting 15 whiffs on the night and 46.7% soft contact. He's generating 24.8% soft contact on the year thus far with just 13.% line drives and a 53.8% groundball rate. Stellar stuff. Pair that with a 9.80 K/9 and an atrocious walk rate of 3.92 BB/9 that I expect to fall (two 5 walk outings are over half his total amount) and I don't see why we shouldn't be favoring Manaea over pitchers like Johnny Cueto, Kyle Hendricks, and Marcus Stroman.
Let’s see how every other SP did yesterday:
