With heavy heart, masterful Manaea lifts Mets in Game 3

NEW YORK -- The 44,093 fans at Citi Field could not have known, when they rose in unison in the eighth inning Tuesday, of Sean Manaea’s grief. Even as Manaea acknowledged them with a wave of his left hand and a kiss to the heavens, they couldn’t have understood.

Only Manaea knew that he had just delivered the game of his life at a moment of mourning. Earlier Tuesday, before National League Division Series Game 3, Manaea lost his aunt Mabel. He didn’t have time to grieve. He needed to pitch. And that is precisely what Manaea did, throwing seven of the finest innings of his career in a 7-2 win over the Phillies that pushed the Mets to the cusp of the NL Championship Series.

One more win, and the Mets will head to California seeking the pennant.

“I haven’t had the most amazing career,” Manaea said. “But through the ups and downs and through the hardships, that’s what makes games like this mean so much.”

Manaea’s Game 3 effort, which saw him become the eighth Met to allow three or fewer hits over seven-plus innings with one or zero runs in a postseason game, was not an aberration. Since late July, he has been the Mets’ best pitcher, relying on an arm slot adjustment to produce superlative numbers throughout the second half.

But doing it on a postseason stage is different, and Manaea, following a solid but unspectacular Wild Card Series start in Milwaukee, did not begin NLDS Game 3 in brilliant form. The first three Phillies batters to face him all hit balls over 106 mph. Though each of them landed in a Mets glove, the start was still concerning.

Manaea managed to keep things scoreless in large part because of his ability to jump ahead in counts. But it wasn’t until the fifth inning that something clicked. When Manaea struck out No. 8 hitter Edmundo Sosa on a changeup, catcher Francisco Alvarez noticed how nasty the pitch seemed from his perspective behind the plate. He decided to call more of it, including to left-handers, which allowed Manaea to surprise Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper with that pitch. The two had reason not to suspect it; in 19 starts since dropping his arm slot, Manaea had thrown just a single changeup to a left-handed batter.

“He got us today,” Harper said. “He beat us.”

It was Harper’s sixth-inning at-bat that shifted momentum permanently to the Mets. After walking Schwarber and Trea Turner, Manaea threw a first-pitch changeup for a strike, then came back with what Harper called “two banger sliders.” He swung through the last of them for a strikeout.

The next batter, Nick Castellanos, also chased a changeup off the plate, hitting it hard into second baseman Jose Iglesias’ glove for an easy double play.

At that moment, Manaea raised his arms to the side, stretching out to the full wingspan of his 6-foot-5 frame. Then he lowered them to his waist, balled his fists and screamed.

“When he can command the slider and the changeup and the fastball, it’s like they have no shot,” Alvarez said. “Because he’s locating everything. When he’s like that, he’s unbelievable.”

It helped that Manaea spent most of the evening pitching with a lead. Pete Alonso led off the second inning with his sixth career homer against Aaron Nola, his former college nemesis against whom he’s fared remarkably well in the pros. Jesse Winker added to the lead with his first career playoff homer and -- following Manaea’s escape act in the top of the sixth -- Starling Marte and Iglesias each singled home a pair of insurance runs.

Given such a cushion, Mets manager Carlos Mendoza attempted to push Manaea, understanding the value of protecting his heavily worked bullpen arms. That strategy included letting the left-hander face Harper and Castellanos with two men on base in the sixth, as well as allowing him to start the eighth inning.

Manaea did not last long in the eighth, allowing a leadoff single to bring his manager out of the dugout. But the result of that was a standing ovation from the crowd as he walked off the mound, his aunt on his mind, his performance another signal of this Mets team possessing a wholly different sort of grit.

“I’m trying to find a way to articulate it,” pitching coach Jeremy Hefner said, pausing to find the proper words. “He just doesn’t let the moment get too big for him.”