A’s Billy Beane hints Sean Manaea to start potential wild-card game

SEATTLE - Appearing on The Chronicle’s A’s Plus podcast Friday, vice president of baseball operations Billy Beane hinted that Sean Manaea is indeed the man most likely to start a potential wild-card game.

The Chronicle has speculated that Manaea would get the call if the A’s make it into Wednesday’s AL wild-card game and Beane said Friday that it’s between Manaea and Friday’s starter, Mike Fiers, calling it “a good problem to have” before pointing slightly more toward Manaea.

“Certainly, matchups will come into it and listen, you don’t want to get ahead of yourself, but the one who doesn’t start that game, the other one, would be available when you go forward,” Beane said. “That being said, Sean has been almost perfect since he’s come back and I’d say right now, if you had him start that game, we’d all feel good. But we’d also feel good if Mike started that game, too.”

Manaea has won each of his past four starts since coming off the injured list Sept. 1 and he has a 1.21 ERA in his five outings. Fiers is 15-4 with a 3.91 ERA and at one point, he was unbeaten in 21 consecutive appearances. He gave up nine runs at Houston earlier this month, then left a start at Texas with a “zinger” down his forearm the following outing, but he came back with eight scoreless innings against the Rangers his last time out, allowing two hits in the process.

“Mike’s been amazingly consistent for us,” Beane said. “He had that little forearm blip and then came right back, and I thought in a weird way that was psychologically a big game for us, he pitched so well against Texas, and physically, too, he gave the bullpen an extra day off right after the off day, it was was huge.”

Beane addressed other additional potential playoff roster possibilities, and also discussed the team’s likely use...