Sean Manaea: To the Los Angeles Dodgers he’s a pitching pinata

Has any team ever abused a pitcher as badly as the Los Angeles Dodgers have abused Sean Manaea?

Statistically, this has been far and away the worst season of Manaea’s seven-year major league career. His 5.23 ERA is three-quarters of a point higher than his previous worst and a point and a half higher than his career average through 2021.

Los Angeles Dodgers destroying Sean Manaea this season

Obtained by the San Diego Padres from Oakland in early April in a move to bolster the Padres’ run at the division favorite Dodgers,  he’s also experiencing career worsts in slugging average (.474), home runs allowed (29), and win probability (-1.1).

It’s all happened at a point in Manaea’s career – he’s 30 – when he ought to be enjoying his prime. After all, he made a league-high 32 starts just last season with 179 innings and struck out a personal best 194 opponents.

What happened? In simple terms, the Los Angeles Dodgers happened.

Manaea has made three of his 27 starts against the Dodgers, and all three have been unmitigated disasters.

On April 24, he was knocked out in the fifth inning of a 10-2 loss, having allowed seven runs, six of them earned. On Aug. 5 the Dodgers pounded him for eight runs and 10 hits in four innings. Then on Sept. 3, Manaea faced the Dodgers a third time, being kayoed with one out in the fifth. The damage again totaled eight runs, three of them home runs

In his total of 13 innings against the division front-runners, Manaea has been saddled with a staggering 15.23 ERA. Against all other opponents, his ERA is a more normal 4.29.

There is a statistic called Game Score, developed by Bill James, that attempts to reduce a pitcher’s performance in a game to a single number. The higher a game score the better, the average being around 50. In his 24 starts against other teams, Manaea’s average game score is 51.83. In his three starts against the Dodgers, it’s just 19.67.

Through six seasons with the Athletics in the AL West, Manaea had limited exposure to the Dodgers. He had only faced them three times, twice in 2018 and once in 2020.  He was 1-2 with a 5.26 ERA; that’s worse than his 3.59 career ERA through 2021 but far, far better than this year.

His ERAs against San Diego’s other division rivals – 3.75 vs. the Diamondbacks, 4.50 vs. the Rockies, and 4.76 vs. the Giants – are not great, but they’re far closer to normal.

If the Padres stay with their regular rotation, Manaea would be in line to make a fourth start against LA Thursday. Then again, Yu Darvish, who last pitched on Saturday, would also be available on full rest Thursday night. It will be interesting to see how Padres manager Bob Melvin handles that situation.

Sean Manaea is a free agent at season’s end. He may be looking for a team that is on the Los Angeles Dodgers’ schedule as infrequently as possible in 2023.