6:50PM: Manaea’s problem only arose today while the southpaw was playing catch, manager Bob Melvin told the San Francisco Chronicle’s Susan Slusser and other media. Manaea will undergo an MRI, and has already left the A’s on their road trip to head back to Oakland for further examination.
12:41PM: The Athletics have placed left-hander Sean Manaea on the 10-day disabled list with a shoulder impingement and recalled reliever Emilio Pagan from Triple-A Nashville, per a team announcement.
It’s unknown if Manaea will miss any time beyond the 10-day window, though it’s clear the location of the injury is alarming, and it likely helps explain his recent dip in velocity. This development is all the more troubling for the Athletics given both Manaea’s importance to their rotation and the fact that they’re fighting for a playoff spot. Oakland will enter play Sunday four games up on AL West rival Seattle for the league’s second wild-card spot and just 1 1/2 behind the division-leading Astros.
A good portion of the A’s unexpected success this season has come thanks to the 26-year-old Manaea, who easily leads the team in starts (27) and innings (161 2/3). Along the way, Manaea has pitched to a 3.59 ERA/4.25 FIP with 6.05 K/9, 1.79 BB/9 and a 44 percent groundball rate. His DL placement continues a run of poor injury luck in the A’s starting staff, which is also without Jharel Cotton, A.J. Puk, Andrew Triggs, Kendall Graveman and Paul Blackburn and has seen Trevor Cahill and Brett Anderson miss extended periods of time. As a result of that slew of injuries, Manaea had been the last man standing from Oakland’s season-opening staff, as Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle points out.
Despite its myriad injuries, the A’s patchwork rotation – which currently includes Cahill, Anderson, Mike Fiers, Edwin Jackson and Chris Bassitt – has fared decently this year. Oakland’s starters have managed to bridge the gap to a quality bullpen, ranking 16th in the majors in both ERA (4.04) and fWAR (7.7). Fiers has made positive contributions to those numbers since the A’s added him in a trade with the Tigers on Aug. 6, and his acquisition now looks all the more timely in the wake of Manaea’s injury.
A month too late, but finally. Hopefully he can come back for the last week and hit the playoffs at full strength.
If they make the playoffs…
4 games up on Seattle
Plenty of season left, and way stranger things have happened. Not saying they can make it up, but the Rays are looking like they will win #8 in a row. Does anyone really trust the A’s mishmash of starters?
I don’t know about the starters, but that bullpen is amazing. If they do end up in the postseason, they’ll be a very scary team to face.
If their starters get spanked early, the bullpen won’t matter, and by the way nobody in yhe AL east or central is fearing the A’s bullpen.
Ok, let’s not fear a good bullpen…
Starters haven;t been spanked early in a really long time. MLB leading 2.92 team ERA since the All-Star break.
Wow…at least try and be objective rather than an A’s homer……the playoffs are a whole different story if they get there.
No doubt the A’s have been overachieving so far…..still a ways to go with players that have no experience when/if the playoffs come around….maybe they answer the bell, maybe they don’t!
But objectively this is a patchwork starting staff at the best, so I stand by my original comment about nobody fearing their bullpen!
Playoffs are a crapshoot and have been for a long time my friend. Giants?
Rocky7 next time look up stats before you comment. Who has the lowest ERA since all star break in the AL? A’s. My guess is your team is in last place so nobody fears them.
Ray’s are back 9 games from A’s. It would need to be a complete collapse by A’s and mariners for the Rays to make the playoffs. 9 game with 32 left to play would be nothing but a miracle of all time.
It’s good to be objective, but you can not say “the bullpen won’t matter” if the starters get spanked. Let’s say spanked is like 6 runs ok? Starter goes like 4 innings gives up 6 runs but then the bullpen takes over and prevents anymore runs from scoring. The A’s bullpen has been that scary. With the A’s strong lineup, they can easily come back from that deficit. The bullpen does indeed matter, and a World Series team, or playoff team for that matter, undoubtedly, needs a great bullpen.
If Seattle sweeps the A’s this week, they’ll be tied for a wild card spot.
Big “if” there…
That same logic can be applied to the A’s and the Huston series or Yankees series next week.
Garcia?
Bite your tongue
Manea will be missed no doubt but the A’s still have plenty at AAA to chose from from the likes of Bassitt, Daniel Mengden, etc, take your pick…
“Take your pick”. wow, I guess you feel as if the A’s AAA pitching has some kind of magic pill that allows them to walk into major league parks and pitch their b_lls off!
DL both.
Time to bring back Barry Zito to pitch with Cahill and Anderson. Or….. Jake Peavy!!! Lol
Probably better than “take your pick” what’s on the farm!
I would assume Montas would get callback though he has been roughed up in Nashville a couple of outings. I wonder if Lazardo gets called up to open bullpen nights with plan he could go 4
Oaklands front office has made it pretty clear that they do not have faith in any of the starters at Nashville. I will be very surprised if Billy Beane doesn’t trade for a starter this week.
Manaea has not pitched very well since all star break while rest of the starters has done well.. I do see them picking up a starter that is available if he can get through waivers.
I don’t see that happening as you are trying to cover 5 starts at the most over September and not going to take on salary to do that. I think they can get 3 decent starts from Nashville and 2 horrible ones. Best case is manaea just needs 2-3 weeks rest
Salary is not an issue for a one-month rental.
Crap! I hope this doesn’t screw up their chances at beating the Yankees in the wild card game if they get there. He would have to be the starter I would assume
Gio Gonzalez is available. Will be like bringing back the band with Cahill and Anderson already back on the team.
dont think Gio gets through NL waivers though
Gonzalez passed through waivers unclaimed last week. The nationals are free to trade him to any team now.