Forbidden Love: Sean Manaea
Forbidden Love is a Cubs DNA series where our staff waxes poetic about a player on a team other than the Cubs. Maybe even one you think they should hate. In this installment, Staci reminds us all that the Oakland A's are fun and awesome, especially lefty starting pitcher Sean Manaea!
Can we talk about the Oakland A's for a sec? As a whole, we're very pro-A's here at the DNA. Heck, it's well documented that I grew up an A's fan in Northern California, and that most members of my family still fly the kelly green and gold. The A's are fun. Their ownership is actually, factually cheap, so their players make the best of what they have before they're traded to another team where they become MVPs and All Stars and what not. The current team is good! Very good, in fact... so good that they're in first place and have a genuine superstar in Matt Chapman (get well soon, buddy)!
That's why it's kind of weird that we've only done one of these things about an A's player, and even that was shared with Joltin' Joe Kelly. Today, I'm here to change that, because I'd like to spend a few moments on this man:
Sean Manaea doesn't have career numbers that will blow your mind. He's been... solid. He did, however, manage to toss a no-hitter against a red hot, soon to be championship Red Sox team in 2018 that we now know had some degree of illegal help (read: they cheated), and it was totally fun.
In fact, Manaea himself is totally fun. Need a cheerleader during a pandemic? Manaea is totally your dude.
Need an epic hairdo? Yep, he's on it!
How about an impeccable Halloween costume? Yep, got that covered.
All that, and the guy works his tail off. After getting off to a rocky start this season, Manaea's on a tear with a 1.98 ERA and a 0.80 WHIP in his last five starts. This is after coming back from a major shoulder injury and getting knocked around by the Rays (another DNA approved team, by the way) in last year's Wild Card game. Manaea's looking like an ace again for the A's, which they're definitely going to need to keep the cheating Asstros from surging up in their division. Outings like this certainly help that cause:
OH, one more thing... Manaea has a cool little thing in common with the Cubs' latest entrant into the No-Hitter Club:
See? He's practically one of ours! Or something! All of these things add up to me continually rooting hard core for Sean, and hoping that when he gets the ball in the postseason this year, it'll be Ace Manaea that shows up. I'd be down for a Cubs/A's World Series, wouldn't you?
