Make that two consecutive scoreless starts for Sean Manaea.
The right-hander continued his stellar pitching in Monday’s makeup game against the St. Louis Cardinals, tossing seven scoreless innings in the Mets‘ 6-0 victory at Busch Stadium.
The Cardinals managed to put traffic on the basepaths in the third and fourth innings, but the frames ended unceremoniously — for the home team — with strikeouts. With two men on following singles in the bottom of the third, Cardinals designated hitter Wilson Contreras struck out swinging on a 95 mph fastball to end the inning. And again with two outs and two on in the fourth, catcher Andre Pages struck out swinging after working the count full.
Manaea recorded 10 strikeouts while avoiding trouble to end his outing. He allowed six hits and no walks over 102 pitches. He’s now thrown 14 consecutive scoreless innings dating back to his trade deadline day win against the Twins last Tuesday. After entering the month with a 3.50 ERA, the number now sits at 3.30.
The Mets weren’t able to really take advantage of Manaea’s outing until the fifth inning. Pete Alonso scored on a wild pitch in the second, but the team didn’t do any damage before a four-run fifth inning blew the game open. Former Cardinals outfielder Harrison Bader‘s RBI double made the score 2-0. The double advanced teammates Jeff McNeil and Francisco Alvarez, who both reached on singles.
Then after a Francisco Lindor walk, Tyrone Taylor hit a double to right that cleared the bases and extended the lead, 5-0. All five runs were charged to Cardinals starter Andre Pallante, who lasted 4.2 innings. He allowed five hits, two walks and struck out two over 90 pitches.
Righty reliever Shawn Armstrong got the final out in the fifth before giving up McNeil’s 10th home run of the season in the sixth. He went on to strike out four batters and allow another hit in his 2.1 innings of work.
The Cardinals managed to put another runner in scoring position against Manaea in the seventh, but that inning ended with leadoff hitter Masyn Winn flying out to left. Manaea kept his opponents 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position and gave up just one extra-base hit.
Relievers Ryne Stanek and Edwin Diaz registered two scoreless innings to preserve the shutout and secure the win.
The Mets will now travel to Colorado to face the last-place Rockies on Tuesday. Luis Severino is slated to face off against left-hander Kyle Freeland.
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