Lack of Velocity Against Giants Doesn't Bother Athletics Manaea After 5-Inning Stint

In his final tuneup before he starts the second game of the season for the Oakland Athletics Saturday against the Angels, Sean Manaea pitched well enough, but didn't have much zip on the ball. He thinks it will come. His manager thinks the radar gun might havef been wonky.

For a pitcher who didn’t break the 90-mph level once Monday night, A’s starter Sean Manaea seemed at peace following the A’s 6-2 loss to the San Francisco Giants.

Manaea gave up half of the Giants runs, but wasn’t hit particularly hard. A hit batter and two infield singles set up Austin Slater for a three-run double in the second inning, and Oakland would not come back from that deficit. Slater wound up with five of the six Giants’ runs.

Manaea did not walk a batter and he retired the final 10 men he faced in succession.

“I feel like I’m pretty much locked in,” Manaea said after a five-inning outing, his longest of Summer Camp.

“I feel good, and that’s all that really matters,” Manaea said. “I’m not really worried about velocity right now, I think it will come back.”

Manager Bob Melvin said he thought that the lack of speed might have come from the radar gun itself, that its readings were off, although he said later in the game the readings seemed to be closer to the mark.

Offensively the A’s were held to four hits, one of them a second-inning homer by right fielder Stephen Piscotty, who got to watch play in front of his cat and his brother’s dog. Both of them had places of honor as part of the cardboard cutout second devoted to raising money for Piscotty’s family foundation devoted to battling ALS.

“There were a few of m family and friends and students, too,” Piscotty said. “I think we sold out; we could be offering up some more. It’s really cool.”

Piscotty also singled in his three at-bats, collecting half of the A’s four hits. For an outfielder who original spring training was cut short by an oblique strain, he’s back to health, and he looks it.

“He looks like a different guy,” Melvin said of Piscotty. “If anybody benefitted by this time off, it was Stephen. He’d been struggling to get healthy for quite a while now. He wasn’t going to ready for the season (when it was supposed to start in March). And now he looks like he did a couple of years ago.

“He’s using his legs like he normally does, he hit the ball the other way, he’s pulling the ball.”

NOTES:

--Ramon Laureano, held out of Monday’s start by a little calf discomfort, is scheduled to be in the lineup Tuesday when the locale switches across the bay to Oracle Park.

--Three relievers, Yusmeiro Petit, J.B. Wendelken and Liam Hendriks each threw an inning for the A’s, faced three batters and struck out two.

--Jordan Weems, the catcher-turned-pitcher who learned Sunday that he’d made the 30-man roster, allowed the two runs he inherited to score, but Melvin wasn’t bothered. Weems, a hard thrower, broke Wilmer Flores’ bat, but the ball looped over the infield to bring home the Giants’ final run.

Follow Athletics insider John Hickey on Twitter: @JHickey3

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