Having Temporarily Become His Own Coach, Athletics' Manaea Continues to Experiment

Oakland Athletics starter Sean Manaea spent his time with baseball down experimenting with his game. Now that he's back in the A's camp again, he's feeling confident in his game and wants to keep the experiments going. And that includes experimenting with wearing a mask while throwing.

Sean Manaea was one of the only members of the A’s roster to spend the entire period of Major League Baseball’s downtime in the Phoenix area, near the A’s HoHoKam facilities in Mesa.

During the more than three months the left-handed pitcher spent in Arizona waiting for Major League Baseball to come back, he managed to find himself a new coach. He became his own coach.

“What was so important was being able to play catch with the other guys,” Manaea said Sunday afternoon. “At the same time, I just really became my own coach. Some days I’d be like, `You know, I’m going to try this time.' It was just experimenting, tinkering around. It was a great feeling.”

Now that’s he back with the A’s, Manaea presumably will leave most of the coaching work to pitching coach Scott Emerson. At the same time, Manaea says he will take some of those experiments and incorporate them into his game.

“I’m excited to get out there and test these new things out,” Manaea said. “I have a lot more confidence in myself to go out there and experiment. Things are a lot smoother. I shortened my arm action, did stuff like that.

“For me, the whole three months was a time of just basically kicking things around.”

At least at the beginning, Manaea says he’s going to try throwing while wearing a mask. He’s not sure how it will go, but he’s found a bandana-like mask he thinks is cool looking, and if a pitcher is going to experiment, he may as well experience all the way, right?

“I might use a face mask,” Manaea said. “I don’t know if we’re required to wear it on the field, but I might as well just try it out and see what it’s like. At least for a game.”

Players are not required to wear masks on the field. And when Manaea was in Arizona he didn’t wear one. But then he was in wide-open spaces. Being in a baseball park is an entirely different feeling.

“We were able to keep our social distancing (in Arizona),” he said. “Now that we’re all together and we’re going to be in confined spaces, it’s just going to be different. I saw a couple of guys wear the neck [masks] and I thought that was pretty cool. To be able to wear something different and jazz that up. It might be fun to rock.”

Follow Athletics insider John Hickey on Twitter: @JHickey3

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