Manaea stellar, then ’pen crumbles
Hendriks allows tying, winning homers in ninth
NEW YORK — Even coming as it did in a loss, Sean Manaea’s return to the A’s was simply sensational, particularly considering that at one point about a year ago, the team believed he would miss all of 2019.
Manaea worked five scoreless innings at Yankee Stadium and rookie Sheldon Neuse provided a big blow with his first bigleague hit, a tworun double off former A’s reliever Ryan Dull.
But the bane of Oakland’s season, the bullpen, surrendered five runs in the final two innings, with AllStar closer Liam Hendriks giving up solo homers by Brett Gardner and pinchhitter Mike Ford in the ninth to give the Yankees a 54 walkoff victory.
“I wasn’t able to locate well today, and when I did throw strikes, they were right down the middle,” said Hendriks, who had the secondbest homerspernine innings numbers in the league, at 0.26. “I didn’t have the best command, and it came back to bite us.”
Hendriks was working his second inning after getting the final two outs of the eighth, but, he said, “No excuses. I didn’t get the job done.”
With Tampa Bay’s win over Cleveland on Sunday, the A’s fell out of a wildcard spot; they trail the Indians by half a game for the second berth.
Manaea’s outing was a major bright spot for Oakland, however — a return to his regular form after left shoulder surgery on
Sept. 19. Manaea faced the minimum through the first four, allowing only an infield single and then getting Gleyber Torres to ground into a double play.
“It felt awesome,” Manaea said. “It’s been a long road back.”
“That’s a great start for him. He pitched really well, really effectively,” manager Bob Melvin said.
In the fifth, Manaea threw 33 pitches and walked the bases loaded, but got out of it thanks to a spectacular play by first baseman Matt Olson, who dived to his right to stop a grounder by Mike Tauchman. Then, from the seat of his pants, Olson lobbed the ball to Manaea, covering a step ahead of Tauchman.
“That was unbelievable,” Manaea said.
Olson added a solo homer in the eighth, his 28th, and Josh Phegley drove in a run in the seventh against Dull with an excuseme tapper. Neuse, who’d started his career 0for9, said it was a relief to deliver in that same inning. “It took me three days here, but I finally did it,” Neuse said.
Neuse had the baseball and, asked whether he planned to give it to anyone, he smiled and said, “Yeah. Myself.”
Manaea’s fastball averaged 90.8 mph and registered as high as 94.4 mph, 56 mph more than he’d been hitting early in his rehab assignment. He struck out five — including getting Aaron Judge on three pitches, all fastballs, in the fourth.
“He looked good,” shortstop Marcus Semien said. “He had that same sneaky fastball. It’s heavy. You don’t know where his release point is, and his fastball just gets on you.”
The question now, with Manaea looking topnotch against one of the league’s besthitting teams, is: What happens with Oakland’s rotation? Melvin suggested two weeks ago that with a stretch of 16 games in 16 days starting Tuesday, the team might go to a sixman rotation.
Another possibility: Oakland could move one of its starters into the bullpen occasionally. Chris Bassitt might fit the bill because he has worked in relief in previous seasons.
“Everybody’s pitched well to this point, so it’s a good problem to have,” Melvin said, adding that the team still has top prospect Jesús Luzardo as an option, too. “You look at what happened to us last year — we lost every single starter over the course of the season. You can never have too much starting pitching, and who knows? Maybe some of these guys show up in the bullpen at some point, too.”
On Sunday, the A’s bullpen, with Blake Treinen and Joakim Soria unavailable, faltered again in the eighth. Jake Diekman and Lou Trivino combined to allow three runs, one on a sacrifice fly by Torres and two more on Didi Gregorius’ bouncer up the middle off Hendriks that eluded Semien coming across the middle.
“Those are the toughest plays I’ve run across, the line drive from a lefty up the middle when you’re sprinting,” Semien said. “You know it will come back to you, but you don’t know how much, and most of the plays I’ve had here have been bouncier than that.”