His mother said he would make it.

When Sean Manaea was a child, he told her that he didn’t think he could become a major leaguer, prompting his mother, Opal, to respond that new pitchers join the bigs every year and there was no reason he couldn’t be one of them.

If he dreamed, then she believed. The world is filled with enough people who roll their eyes.

“Sean would tell his mom, ‘I want to throw 97 [mph] one day,’” Manaea’s travel team coach, Jim Nohos, said. “And Opal is like, ‘Oh, Sean, don’t worry about it. You’ll throw the 97 one day. You don’t have to throw it today.’”