The Phillies Get Caught in Sean Manaea’s Crossfire

Mets fans have their narrative: Sean Manaea was remarkable in Game 3 of the NLDS, keeping the Phillies in check over seven-plus innings and leading his club to a resounding 7-2 victory. Phillies fans have their narrative, too: The NL East champs played uncompetitive baseball all evening, pushing them to the brink of elimination. The former narrative gives the Mets all the agency (they won because they played well!), while second gives the Phillies all the blame (they lost because they played so poorly!), but that doesn’t mean they both can’t be true. The Mets were firing on all cylinders in Game 3, and the Phillies didn’t do much to stop them.

Entering play on Tuesday, all four Division Series were tied up 1-1. That effectively turned each series into a three-game set – and a three-game set in which the lower seeds held home-field advantage. It’s no secret the Phillies love playing at Citizens Bank Park; their 54-27 (.667) record at home this season was the best in baseball, while their 41-40 (.506) record on the road was tied for 13th. However, the Phillies still had an ace up their sleeve as they packed their bags and left for Queens. They only had to win one game at Citi Field and they could come back home to another Zack Wheeler start at the Bank. That’s a big reason why they came into tonight’s game with a 61% chance to advance to the NLCS, as well as the highest World Series odds among the eight remaining teams.

Manaea had something to say about that. The veteran left-hander is coming off arguably the best season of his nine-year career. By WAR and FIP, his 2021 campaign was slightly better, but his 3.47 ERA, 181.2 innings pitched, and 1.82 WPA were all career bests. The driving force behind his success this year was his sinker, which he featured as his primary pitch (as he had in 2021) and threw with more horizontal movement. Neither PitchingBot nor Stuff+ was especially enamored with the pitch, but the results spoke for themselves: According to Baseball Savant, Manaea’s sinker had a +15 run value in 2024, the fifth-highest mark among all sinkers in the league.

In Game 3, Manaea complemented that sinker with a heavier dose of his sweeper and changeup than usual, opting to largely eschew the rest of his arsenal. Trimming his pitch mix worked well for Manaea down the stretch this year, and it continued to work well on Tuesday. He earned seven swings and misses on each of his secondaries for a combined 50% whiff rate. That proved especially helpful considering that his sinker lacked some of its typical horizontal break; the Phillies hit it hard, putting six in play with a 99.3-mph average exit velocity.

All told, Manaea wasn’t always sharp; he walked two batters, hit two more, and gave up six batted balls with an exit velocity over 101 mph. But again, it’s hard to argue with the results. He went seven-plus innings on 91 pitches, and the only run he allowed was on a runner he bequeathed to Phil Maton in the top of the eighth. He never threw more than 17 pitches or faced more than five batters in an inning. He gave up his fair share of hard contact and balls in the air, but never let one reach the stands; a few looked close off the bat, but none would have left the yard at any major league ballpark. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Manaea kept the Phillies’ two dangerous lefty bats, Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper, at bay. He also kept platoon bats Brandon Marsh and Bryson Stott out of the lineup until he exited in the eighth. The Phillies clearly needed to run up Manaea’s pitch count and get him out of the game sooner, but they couldn’t get it done.

The rest of the team provided more than enough support behind Manaea, letting Carlos Mendoza feel secure about giving his starter a long leash. The Mets scored seven runs on nine hits and five walks. Pete Alonso returned to Citi Field after saying his potential goodbye last month and hit a no-doubter in his first at-bat; Jesse Winker added a towering shot of his own two innings later. Eight of the nine players in the Mets’ starting lineup reached base, and the only one who didn’t, Tyrone Taylor, made an excellent defensive play to catch Alec Bohm trying to stretch a single into a double in the top of the fourth:

That play might be as good a segue as any into the other central narrative of the game: The Phillies were sloppy in Game 3. No individual player deserves all the blame, but few escaped the night’s action without botching or bungling something. Aaron Nola wasn’t awful; in fact, there were times when he looked quite good. His velocity was up, he kept his pitch count low, and he struck out eight. He retired Francisco Lindor all three times he faced him. Still, the Phillies needed more than five-plus innings and four earned runs out of Nola. The Mets were sitting on his four-seam straight away, and he paid the price on Alonso’s homer in the bottom of the second. He paid again when he gave Winker a juicy meatball in the bottom of the fourth; it was a slightly more hittable pitch than the similarly-located fastball Winker nearly sent into the seats two innings earlier:

Nola ran into more trouble in the sixth, giving up a single to Mark Vientos and walking Brandon Nimmo to put two runners on with no outs. It was the first time he had to pitch with multiple runners on base, and the first time he had to pitch with a runner in scoring position. It’s at this point that we could point the finger of blame toward Rob Thomson, who chose to let Nola face Alonso for a third time rather than go to the bullpen. It was only after Nola walked Alonso to load the bases that Thomson called for Orion Kerkering; the young fireballer recorded two outs before giving up a two-run single to Starling Marte.

Thomson made the same mistake the following inning, this time letting José Alvarado face Alonso with runners on first and second. Alvarado has fallen far down the Phillies’ bullpen depth chart since last October, in large part due to his ridiculously high walk rate against right-handed batters this year. Lo and behold, he walked Alonso to load the bases, and only then did Thomson call for a pitching change. Even stranger, Thomson called in José Ruiz, famously a low-leverage arm, with the bases loaded in a four-run ballgame. All-Star relievers Carlos Estévez, Matt Strahm, and Jeff Hoffman were left sitting right there waiting while Ruiz gave up a two-run single to Jose Iglesias.

And the Phillies’ problems were hardly limited to pitching. There was Bohm’s poor baserunning in the fourth. There was Harper striking out on three swings immediately after Manaea issued two consecutive walks to open the top of the sixth. There was Trea Turner failing to catch J.T. Realmuto’s laser of a throw and apply the tag to Harrison Bader stealing second in the bottom of the frame. Even Nick Castellanos‘ phenomenal second-inning catch in right was followed by him dropping the ball on the transfer. That one turned out to be no harm, no foul – the runner couldn’t advance from first anyway, and Nola escaped the inning unscathed – but it was another example of the Phillies failing to execute:

A common theme to each of those debacles? The Phillies started with something good, only to mess it up. Bohm laced a beautiful base hit to the outfield, but was thrown out. The Phillies finally got something going against Manaea with no outs, but squandered the opportunity. Realmuto made a strong throw, but Turner missed the catch. Castellanos made a great catch, but dropped the ball before he could turn a double play. For lack of a better word, it was sloppy. Even worse, it might have been an omen.

From 2008 to 2011, the Phillies improved on their regular season record each year only to take a step back in each subsequent the postseason. They won the World Series in 2008, lost in the World Series in 2009, lost in the NLCS in 2010, and lost in the NLDS in 2011. Now, the current club is at risk of fumbling the bag once again. They won their first NL East title 2011, but they’re getting dangerously close to an early postseason exit.

The Mets and their fans left the ballpark on Tuesday feeling great about a terrific win. The whole team came together behind an excellent Manaea to keep the magic going against their toughest opponent yet. Meanwhile, the Phillies and their fans are left utterly disappointed by a sloppy performance across the board. And of course, these narratives are interconnected. The Mets were only as good as the Phillies allowed them to be. The Phillies were only so bad because the Mets capitalized on their mistakes. Alonso’s home run was his success and Nola’s failure. The same is true for Taylor’s terrific throw to nail Bohm at second base. Thomson’s bullpen management was only proved poor because the Mets’ offense was relentless. Manaea looked so great because the Phillies’ offense came up short.

Now, with a 2-1 lead in the NLDS, the Mets are the favorites to win the series. But they’re only the favorites because the Phillies gave up that title, and the Phillies are only the underdogs because the Mets made it so.