A new report explains why the New York Mets are resting all their playoff hopes on Sean Manaea’s left arm with one game left in the 2025 season.
It’s do-or-die time for the Mets on Sunday afternoon. There is one game left in the regular season, and they must win if they want to have any chance of extending their campaign into the postseason next week. With so much on the line today against the Miami Marlins, the team made a bold change last night.
It was revealed that instead of All-Star David Peterson taking the mound on Sunday, instead, fellow lefty Sean Manaea will get the start. It was a surprising decision that caught many Mets fans off guard because of how much the 33-year-old has struggled this season. He was even recently demoted to the bullpen.
However, on Sunday morning, The Athletic’s Mets reporter Will Sammon looked to shed some light on why the change was made.
Explaining the Mets’ decision to start Sean Manaea over David Peterson
“The Mets made a relatively conservative selection, though they’ll be prepared to act aggressively with changes if necessary. The Mets prefer Manaea’s swing-and-miss stuff over Peterson against Miami’s contact-oriented lineup,” people familiar with the club’s thinking told Sammon. “Manaea’s strikeout rate (28.1 percent) and whiff rate (26.4 percent) are better than Peterson’s (20.7 percent and 24 percent). Neither pitcher boasts even decent overall numbers since the second half, though.”
Sammon admits that Peterson would make more sense because he would pitch on four days’ rest, and he has not come out of the bullpen at all this year, unlike Manaea recently. However, with many of Peterson’s pitches being put in play, New York’s terrible defensive play in the field is why they prefer a swing-and-miss pitcher in such a huge moment.
The Marlins have a 79.2 percent contact rate in the second half, which is the fourth highest in MLB. Peterson is still expected to be used on Sunday, depending on the situation.
Nevertheless, even if the Mets do win today, they still need the Cincinnati Reds to lose their game to the Milwaukee Brewers because they do not own the tiebreaker between the two teams.
