Sean Manaea's recovery hits another snag, as Mets starter deals with loose body in elbow
NEW YORK — The Mets' ailing starting rotation has another issue on its hands.
Sean Manaea was dealing with left elbow soreness late in his last rehab outing on June 19 for Triple-A Syracuse and an MRI revealed a loose body in his arm. The Mets left-hander received a cortisone shot on Monday and will be shut down from throwing for 48 to 72 hours.
"I would say probably my last inning, maybe second-to-last inning, kind of started to feel it," Manaea said. "I was like, 'This is, I don't know, like sore.' I didn't really think anything of it and then the next day, it was like, 'Wow, this is not feeling the best.'"
Manaea called the MRI results a "good-case scenario," and the cortisone shot will reduce the inflammation in the elbow, allowing him to pitch through the discovery.
During a press conference on Tuesday, Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns said that it is only a minor setback in Manaea's return to the mound and should only set back his timeline by a few days. Stearns said the goal is to have him pitch another rehab game next Tuesday or Wednesday.
"I don't think it slows us down too much," Stearns said "... If he's able to (pitch Tuesday or Wednesday) and that goes well, that would be the last one probably and then he would get back. This sets us back a couple of days, but at least right now, we don't anticipate this necessarily resetting anything."
It appears that this is something that Manaea will pitch through this season. Manaea said surgery is not off the table after the season.
Manaea has been working back from an oblique strain since late February. After being shut down from throwing for a few weeks, he experienced a setback in early April that halted his progress. In his last rehab start for Triple-A Syracuse against Jacksonville, Manaea allowed one earned run on two hits in 5⅓ innings with seven strikeouts as he threw 62 pitches.
"The first few outings, I was just trying to knock the rust off a little bit," Manaea said. "The last outing felt a lot better. The results aside, I just felt like I was able to throw all my pitches for strikes, which was such a huge boost. It felt really good which is why it kind of sucks right now that I gotta take a little more time off, but just continue that and we'll be good.
The Mets have been waiting patiently for Manaea to return and bolster their rotation after he led the unit during the 2024 season. The lefty finished 12-6 with a 3.47 ERA, 1.08 WHIP and 184 strikeouts in a career-high 181⅔ innings and earned a three-year, $75 million deal to return.
In his first three postseason games, Manaea was 2-0 with five earned runs allowed in 17 innings (2.65 ERA) and a 0.71 WHIP before hitting a wall in a Game 6 loss against the Dodgers in the National League Championship Series.
Now, Manaea and the Mets will have to wait a little while longer before he makes his Mets debut.
"It's not exactly how I wanted to start this contract out," Manaea said. "It's very frustrating. I feel like I've been doing all the right things. The oblique, it sucks. It's not fun. I wish to be out there very bad. At the end of the day, I can't really think too much on it, other than just doing all the things I can to get back out there and help this team win."