Manaea K's 10 but surrenders slam in 'weird' outing

NEW YORK -- Early Saturday afternoon at Citi Field, the Mets were in celebration mode. They retired Darryl Strawberry’s No. 18. The game against the D-backs that followed, though, was tough to watch as New York was pounded by Arizona, 10-5.

“We didn’t get it done,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said. “We gave them some extra outs. The guys kept battling, but we didn’t shake hands at the end of the day.”

Take away 1 2/3 innings from Mets left-hander Sean Manaea, and one could say he had a solid outing. He struck out a season-high 10 batters in 5 2/3 frames. Unfortunately, it was the third inning that cost him the game.

After Jake McCarthy reached on a leadoff single, he stole second base before Kevin Newman drew a walk to put runners on first and second. After McCarthy and Newman pulled off a double steal to advance to second and third, it appeared Manaea was going to get out of the inning when he struck out Ketel Marte and Corbin Carroll. However, the left-hander walked Randal Grichuk to load the bases before allowing a grand slam to Christian Walker to give Arizona a four-run lead.

“I'm just trying to keep it simple there once we got to two outs,” Walker said. “At that point, I'm just trying to get a hit. [Manaea] did a good job of slipping the sinker inside of my hands my first at-bat, so I was trying to stay on the fastball.

“I was ready for something on the inner half of the plate the way that sinker was working. It just felt like he wanted to beat me in. I tried to just stay in a good spot, tried to stay on the fastball and just reacted to something elevated in the zone. Fortunately, it was something I could keep fair."

Manaea allowed his last earned run of the game in the sixth inning when he surrendered an RBI single to Blaze Alexander with two outs.

Mendoza called Manaea’s outing weird. According to the skipper, after the first two innings, Manaea’s fastball had life and it caused him to get his share of swings and misses from Arizona.

“If you look at the numbers, Manaea struck out 10,” Mendoza said. “He was really feeling good. [In] my opinion, that walk to Newman [was a turning point].”

Manaea agreed with his skipper’s assessment.

“The 10 strikeouts are really cool. I also had two walks. The home run was not ideal,” Manaea said. “It kind of cancels each other out in a way. Obviously, the grand slam hurts a lot.”