Two Years Ago Today, Manaea No-Hit the Red Sox, the Hottest Team in MLB
Sean Manaea won a dozen games for the A’s in 2017, but it wasn’t until April 21, 2018 that he really broke onto the national stage.
The Boston Red Sox were the hottest thing going back in April of 2018. They won 17 of their first 19 games largely on the strength of an offense that had averaged 6.5 runs and 10.6 hits per game. They were leading the Major Leagues in both categories at that point.
Just the night before in the Coliseum, Boston had roughed up Kendall Graveman and the A’s staff for 11 hits in a 7-3 win that ran the Red Sox’s record to a staggering 17-2. Only one team in MLB history had done better, the 1981 A’s, who started 17-1.
There would be none of that on Saturday night, a fireworks night that was infused with ready-made energy. Sean Manaea would no-hit the Red Sox, completely outpitching Chris Sale, who’d been the runner-up in the American League Cy Young Award voting the year before.
Manaea pitched nine innings, walked Mookie Betts to open the game, saw Sandy Leon reach base on a two-out dropped popup by shortstop Marcus Semien, then walked Andrew Benintendi with two out in the ninth before getting Hanley Ramirez to ground out to end the seventh no-hitter in Oakland A’s history.
“Honestly, it still doesn’t feel real,” Manaea said in the post-game press conference. “Even after the last out, I couldn’t imagine throwing a no-hitter in the big leagues, especially against a team like the Red Sox. I don’t even know what to say.”
For Manaea, who always has something to say, that was a powerful admission.
Curiously, Manaea did give up a hit. In the sixth inning, Benintendi tapped a weak grounder up the first base line. He was originally awarded an infield single. But after the umpiring crew got together, they decided that Benintendi had run out of the baseline to avoid a tag. The hit was erased and Benintendi was just the third out of the sixth inning.
Manaea had only one other real chance to lose the no-no. Semien’s dropped pop fly could have been ruled a hit, but Manaea got a break on that one, which came after he’d retired 14 batters in succession.
The ninth-inning walk was a bit problematic, but after going to 2-0 against Ramirez, Manaea induced a grounder to second base that Jed Lowrie turned into the final out.
The game was the fifth in a great six-game opening to 2018 for Manaea. He went 4-2 in those six games and could have been undefeated considering he had a 1.03 ERA for those half-dozen games. He never gave up more that two runs in any of the six, but he came out on the short end of 2-1 and 4-0 losses.
The rest of 2018 wouldn’t measure up for Manaea. He began feeling some shoulder discomfort, pitched for a while in pain and had a 4.54 ERA from May through mid-August at which point he went on the injured list. He wound up having shoulder surgery on Sept. 20 and it would be 11 months before he’d pitch again in the big leagues.
But that great stretch to open 2018 would be replicated in 2019. Manaea came back in September last year having recovered from the surgery. He made five starts, allowed four runs total and had a 4-0 record and 1.21 ERA down the stretch for the playoff-bound A’s.
When he will get a chance to see if he can add onto that, given the status of baseball’s lockdown in the midst of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, is a complete unknown. But those two stretches have the A’s believing he’s an ace in all but name.
Follow Athletics insider John Hickey on Twitter: @JHickey3
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