Sean Manaea blew a big bubble in the dugout and spun around in a circle, having a great time
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What do starting pitchers do when it's not their day to pitch? Maybe study some film to prepare for their next outing. Or, perhaps they stay just as intense as on game day, focusing on every pitch with bated breath from the dugout.
Or, as lefty Sean Manaea demonstrated during the A's 6-2 win over the Twins on Saturday night at Target Field, maybe they blow giant bubblegum bubbles and spin around in a circle like a kid on a sugar high. That's basically what "The Manaealator" did, and it looked like fun:
Manaea's sugar-fueled frenzy was at least the second amusing example of gum-related shenanigans going on around MLB on the night, as over in Milwaukee Jesús Aguilar had gum horns (?) on the top of his helmet:
Good stuff, guys.
So what happened, exactly, with that bubble and dugout spin move?
"I don't know, I just do it every single day," Manaea explained after the game. "It's just something to pass the time during the game in the dugout. I don't know what I was doing there. I blew a big bubble and I just started spinning for some reason."
Despite the uncertainty conveyed above, Manaea elaborated with some very in-depth gum technique talk:
"I always do three pieces of sugar-free Dubble Bubble," he said. "That seems to be the optimum bubble-blowing consistency. In Oakland, it's perfect because the temperature is colder, so the gum's harder. When it gets too hot, the gum is too flimsy and the bubbles break too easily. So when it's hard, the stretchiness is enough to make the bubbles bigger."
It's a science, you know ...