Former teammates Blake Snell and Sean Manaea will face off on Wednesday afternoon as the San Francisco Giants go for a three-game sweep of the visiting New York Mets. Snell and Manaea were teammates on the San Diego Padres in 2022, a season during which each was an eight-game winner for a San Diego club that reached the National League Championship Series under manager Bob Melvin. Melvin also has since changed addresses, dropping anchor this year with Snell in San Francisco. Manaea joined the Giants last season and has since moved on to the Mets, whereas Snell stuck around one more year in San Diego, winning the 2023 National League Cy Young Award, before in essence taking his former teammate’s spot in the San Francisco rotation.
Snell was with the Padres in 2021 when he matched up with Manaea, then pitching for the Oakland Athletics, twice head-to-head as starters. They split the decisions, each with one dominant performance — Manaea with six scoreless innings of one-hit ball in a 10-4 win on July 28, Snell with five innings of one-run ball in an 8-1 win on Aug. 3. Manaea will be facing the Giants for the first time since leaving as a free agent in January. He went 7-6 with a 4.44 ERA in 37 games, including 10 starts, for San Francisco last season. The 32-year-old veteran has started 11 times previously against the Giants, going 3-3 with a 3.00 ERA.
The matchup also allows for a reunion with new Giants third baseman Matt Chapman, who played alongside Manaea in Oakland for five seasons (2017-21). They have never dueled pitcher vs. hitter in their careers. Manaea will be pitching the finale of New York’s six-game trip after getting the ball in the opener as well. He threw five innings of two-run ball on Friday and got a no-decision in the Mets’ 9-4 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers. His former teammates, manager and fans will get a firsthand look at the new Manaea, who cut his trademark hair for the first time in four years during spring training.
“Pretty impulsive,” he said. “I thought it was time.” Snell, who joined the Giants as a free agent two months after Manaea left, will be making his ninth career start against the Mets. He’s just 4-4 despite a nice 2.66 ERA in the first eight meetings. The 31-year-old will be seeking his first quality start for San Francisco, having allowed a total of 15 runs on 18 hits in 11 2/3 innings during losses to the Washington Nationals, Tampa Bay Rays and Arizona Diamondbacks.
“I’ve just got to get better with sequencing,” Snell said. “The stuff is there, so it’s all sequencing and pitching like I know I can. Once I start doing that … in a month, two months from now, we’ll be talking about other things.”
