Oakland Athletics left-handed starter Sean Manaea will have surgery on his throwing shoulder and miss the rest of the season. The news broke via a medical update posted to the Twitter page of Oakland's PR team.
Per the announcement, Manaea will undergo surgery in Los Angeles next Wednesday. Once the surgery is complete, the team will provide more details so as to establish a timeline for his return next season.
A career season cut short
Thus comes an untimely end to what was a career season for the 26-year-old southpaw. Manaea matched his career high with 12 wins this season and had a 3.59 ERA and remarkable 1.08 WHIP. He showed marked improvement in 2018 by lowering his walks per nine innings (BB/9) from 3.12 to 1.79. Manaea also started throwing his changeup more.
The highlight of the year, however, came on April 21. That was when Manaea threw a no-hitter against the Boston Red Sox, who currently own the best record in baseball. In that game, Manaea threw 75 of 108 pitches for strikes and stuck out 10 hitters in the A's 3-0 victory, which also was against Boston ace Chris Sale.