Mets' Sean Manaea 'confident' and 'healthy' after throwing three innings in spring training debut

JUPITER, Fla. — The first pitch Sean Manaea threw Friday night sailed 348 feet but stayed in the park. The second ball put in play went a mere 276 feet. And the third one? Well, it wasn’t quite as forgiving.

Pitching in a real game for the first time since he started the 2025 season finale, Manaea, who fought through an oblique injury that robbed him of months of baseball last year and foreign bodies in his elbow that stalled his progress, didn’t quite start off things the way he would have hoped. He ended it, though, exactly how he wanted.

Three batters into the bottom of the first inning of the Mets’ spring training game against the Marlins at Roger Dean Chevrolet Stadium, Manaea’s sweeper simply failed to sweep, and Connor Norby drove it over the wall in left-center for a solo home run.

After that, Manaea accomplished what he set out to do, allowing one run, one hit and a walk with one strikeout in three innings. He threw 33 pitches, 19 for strikes.

And though his velocity might have given fans pause — according to MLB’s data, his fastball, which averaged 91.7 mph last year, was clocked at 88.1 mph during the game — Manaea was hardly concerned. It turned out he was mixing in a cut fastball, a pitch he dabbled with in 2024.

“I feel confident with where I’m at and I just feel healthy,” he said. “Some pitches need a little work, but [I feel] healthy and for the most part throwing strikes, but overall, it was a good one to build off of.”

And that’s been the goal: Keep him healthy and ideally have him return to the form that made him the Mets’ de facto ace in 2024.

“I liked the movement of his pitches,” manager Carlos Mendoza said. “He feels really good physically.”

When it comes to velocity, “I’m not going to make too much of the first one,” Mendoza added. “I liked how he used all his pitches . . . We’re not concerned.”

Manaea’s reintroduction is part of a very interesting two-game stretch for the Mets, whose rotation could be truly fierce if Manaea and Kodai Senga, also deeply hampered by injury last season, can reclaim the best versions of themselves.

Manaea’s ERA jumped from 2.92 in the second half of 2024 to 5.64 in the 15 games he pitched in 2025. Senga, who essentially has been hurt for two years, had a 1.39 ERA before injuring a hamstring in mid-June and had a 6.56 ERA the rest of the way before accepting a demotion to Triple-A Syracuse.

Senga, whom Mendoza has been praising throughout spring training, will pitch against the Cardinals in Jupiter on Saturday.

Senga “has been really good,” Mendoza said Thursday. “You’ve got to give him credit. It’s probably the best I’ve seen him since I’ve been here [on the Mets] . . . With the way he’s throwing the baseball, the velo is mid-90s right now. He continues to feel well. He’s in a good spot.”

Manaea, meanwhile, has to reacclimate in another way: His arm slot, which he lowered to great success midway through 2024, actually dropped too low last year, Mendoza said last month.

Thus the staff is “trying to get him a little back to — I’m not going to say normal, because he’s always going to have that arm slot, right?” Mendoza said. “But those are some of the adjustments that we’re working on.”

Manaea, who’s also working on incorporating more changeups, added that he is happy with how his arm slot has adjusted.

It’s not about “being over the top, which I’ve never been, but just a happy medium,” he said. “I think it’s good. I feel healthy. I feel strong . . . I’m not worried about it.”

Notes & quotes: Righty reliever Robert Stock experienced shoulder discomfort after pitching three scoreless innings in a start with Team Israel on Tuesday; he’ll withdraw from the World Baseball Classic and will get further testing, Mendoza said. Stock, 36, signed to a minor-league deal with an invitation to camp, has looked strong, pitching three innings of scoreless relief in Grapefruit League action . . . Luis Robert Jr. will play the outfield in another minor-league game on Sunday and could play in spring training games next week . . . Bobby Ojeda, a member of the 1986 world championship team, is one of three recipients of the Thurman Munson Award, bestowed by the AHRC NYC Foundation. The award recognizes sports figures who have displayed excellence in athletics and community service. The 46th annual awards dinner will be held Thursday at Chelsea Piers.

By Laura Albanese

laura.albanese@newsday.com@AlbaneseLaura

Laura Albanese is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. She's been covering MLB since 2014 after starting at Newsday as an intern seven years earlier.